Corporal punishment in
schools unacceptable
Two teachers from a private primary school in Camurlim, Bardez have reportedly been booked by the police in connection with the brutal assault on a Class IV student, leaving the 9-year-old boy with severe injuries, including cut marks, bruises and blood clots. This incident has sparked outrage and prompted swift reaction from both the police and the Education Department. It is learnt that one of the teachers beat the student with a steel ruler on flimsy ground of allegedly tearing some pages from his notebook. The second teacher is facing charges in restraining the student during the assault and hence had a hand in the
violent attack.
Corporal punishment in schools in India is banned for children aged 6-14. Section 17 (1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 expressly bans subjecting a child to mental harassment or physical punishment. Children should receive education in an environment of freedom and dignity, free from fear and should be nurtured with tenderness and care.
Subjecting the child to corporal punishment in the name of reforming cannot be part of education. It causes incalculable harm to the body and mind of the child. Teachers need to be checked for violent demeanor. They could be under domestic stress and react violently with students in the school on flimsy grounds. The school management needs to take necessary action against such teachers with vicious behavior and nip the menace in the bud.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Erring teachers need
to be booked under law
Two teachers from a private primary school in Camurlim-Bardez have been reportedly booked (one for assaulting and the other for threatening) by police in connection with the brutal assault on a Class IV student, leaving the 9-year old boy with severe injuries, including cut marks, bruises and blood clots.
Well, the way one of the teacher has assaulted the nine-year old boy like for allegedly tearing some pages from his notebook, it looks like she is definitely suffering from some psychological problem.
This teacher who has assaulted the child so very badly needs to be arrested immediately and her services terminated forever for the future safety/betterment of the other children studying in the above private primary school in Camurlim-Bardez.
Jerry Fernandes, Saligao
Zebra crossings:
what a contrast!
For many decades, the Panaji Civil & Criminal Courts were functioning in the premises next to Panjim Residency (Tourist Hostel) along that very busy road. For the convenience of the advocates, staff and litigants, the authorities finally notified a Zebra Crossing to enable people to cross with a right of way.
Despite the law requiring motorists to stop at a zebra crossing once a pedestrian has set foot on to the crossing, it was anguishing to helplessly watch that vehicles including two wheelers continued to zoom along while that ornamental Zebra crossing notification was just on paper. Sadly to date the same state of affairs continues at every zebra crossing in Goa with the pedestrians having to wait for the vehicles to first cross.
Notably in Europe at every Zebra Crossing the vehicles unfailingly and rigorously stop to give pedestrians their right of way. People here act responsibly and as a matter of duty comply in abiding with the rules. Not out of fear of the law.
Aires Rodrigues, London
Indo-Pak cannot
better ties in future
A new survey conducted by Centre for Policy Research (CPR)-C reveals that any improvement on India-Pakistan relations in the near future is in limbo. The survey adds that more than 60% of Indians and half of all Pakistanis believe that the two countries cannot have any comradely ties in this decade. Indo-Pak relationship has been strained for decades, with Kashmir at the heart of the conflict. New Delhi-Islamabad relations have been inimical, and in fact they worsened after the Pulwama attack in |ebruary 2019.
Barring the still-intact ceasefire on the LoC, there has been no positive development in relations between the two neighbouring countries. Mired in an acute economic crisis, Pakistan will not have the space to focus on turning a page in its relations with India. Also, given the questionable and seriously contested legitimacy of Pakistan’s present government, it will be extremely difficult for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to get support and acceptability for extending an olive branch to India.
Ranganathan Sivakumar, Chennai