The murder of a seven-year old child by a sexual predator in a posh school in Gurgaon recently raises several questions. Many have already been voiced – how does one ensure the safety of the child in school, what is the responsibility of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), when should one start explaining to the child the difference between good touch and bad touch, where does parents’ responsibility end and that of schools begin and the like. There are no easy and straightforward answers to any. But one question which nobody has asked is – what if this child had come from a certain different strata of society, had been the son of a not-so-well-off parents and had been studying in a public school? Would the middle class have reacted in the same way if this incident had happened in some nagar palika school and not in a Ryan International? Probably not.
The anger is because this has happened in a Ryan International – a kind of school which has been created by and for middle class so that their children do not have to face the rough and tough of the real world, where the world-view is different, secluded from reality, where learning happens in idyllic surroundings, where there is love, laughter and mirth. Not for them and their children the deprivation and depravity of the lives of public school-wallas. Which is why this incident has come as a rude shock of a reminder that there is a big, bad world out there where danger lurks in every corner.
There can be many more obvious comparisons but that does not change the fact that though there might be a larger number of public schools in India – roughly 1.1 million – there are still 0.3 million private schools also. And they command almost 50 per cent share of the school-going population of nearly 250 million. Which means that on the one hand there are 300,000 private schools with 125 million children, on the other hand there are 11,00,000 public schools with the same number of children! The imbalance is quite obvious. The public school system has failed the expectations and the burden is now on the private system – of not just numbers but also of expectations.
It is to the credit of hundreds and thousands of committed and dedicated teachers in private schools that this system has not failed the expectations of people. But incidents like these shake one’s faith. Are we going on the right track? Are there some things which we are missing or which we are overlooking? Are we participative enough in the schools of our children? Are we taking enough of the responsibility on our own selves to ensure the safety of our children? Are we depending too much on the goodness of the school-wallas in the hope that everything will be fine with our children? Are we questioning enough – ourselves as well as the school authorities? For it is the school authorities first who are the custodians of our children’s safety in schools.
These questions do not probably occur to us when everything is going fine but when things go wrong, like they have now, we realise to our horror that the answer to many of these questions would probably be in the negative. We take too many things for granted without realizing that it is equally our responsibility to see to it that everything is fine with our children in schools. Can we seriously expect CBSE to ensure the safety of each and every of the 250 million school children? What of the 250 million parents / families who are with these children?
They need to take the oath – that they will be vigilant about each and every activity of their children in school, that they will see each and every corner of the place where their children spend five-six hours of their life every day for 14 years, that they will ensure that there are safety mechanisms in place everywhere – in the toilet, in the canteen, in the playfield, in the classroom, in the laboratory, in the library, in the auditorium, in the music room, in the pool, in the gymnasium. You never know what may happen tomorrow at some other place, in some other school. You can’t prevent everything that is going to happen tomorrow but some things can surely be prevented. It never hurts to be too careful.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
