When a three-year-old boy in a Camurlim anganwadi is burnt with a hot spoon in the presence of his teacher by an anganwadi worker, because he shrieked in pain when she was beating him with a wooden rod, it’s a sign that that the fear of law and the administration is non-existent in Goa. Here, the impunity with which the government and the law was snubbed by a person who is working for the government and gets her wages from the tax payers money, is a symptom of a even greater crisis- the absence of fear of the law by people who are in government or even in the periphery, drawing on government resources.
The anganwdi’s have become a law onto themselves. Systems enacted are not followed, the system of appointments of anganwadi staff is ad-hoc and political with either a local politicians wife running the anganwadi or the workers are ‘recruited’ by a local, politician and ratified by the education department.
While a series of cases of food poisoning cases among kids after consuming mid day meals occurred in 2013 brought into focus the manner in which food for children was prepared, there have been no system checks on the quality of teachers who are in touch with children during their formative years, and those of anganwadi workers, who are in a position of influencing children. Almost all of them are political appointees with absolutely no background checks on them. It’s of little comfort that a rogue anganwadi worker Pranali Panchali, who pressed a hot spoon on a three year old boy’s cheek in Camurlim and repeatedly beats children and locks them in cupboards or the toilet has been suspended and sacked. What is most disconcerting is that we do not know how many Pranali Panchalis are there in our system. When anganwadi appointments are done, very often before the moral code of conduct sets in, before any elections, they are just numbers with voting cards. These are the people who then control lives of three to five years olds in a school environment. And since there is no screening mechanism, child abusers like Pranali Panchali, not just slip but swim through the gaping holes in the system. Therefore while her arrest for offences Under the Goa Children’s Act is the right step, there should be an inquiry into the circumstances under which Ms Panchali was recruited and the people involved in placing her in the contact with vulnerable children.
The teachers and others who stood as mute witnesses as the boy was burnt and those who did not intervene when this same Ms Panchali who reportedly locked children in cupboards and toilets, are as guilty and must be arrested and tried under the Goa Children’s Act.
When the running of Goa’s education system becomes a plaything in the hands of politicians, it reaches this rotten state. Virtually none of the commandments under the Right to Education Act have been followed. Schools do not have proper buildings, toilets, teachers and books. The mid day meals are cooked in unhygienic conditions and the checks are merely on paper, with those at the block level who are supposed to inspect the Self Help Groups, hardly making it the schools because they have no transport.
Pranali Panchali needs to be given exemplary punishment to set an example. But fixing one Ms Panchali will not change this system unless this is used as an example of the state deciding to be a big deterrent in the path of a free falling, corrupt and insensitive education system.
