Gone are the days when free classes for children meant time for pranks and games. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed in classrooms, as school safety guidelines mandate, have had their side effect: forced “best behaviour” at all times.
K. Neha, a Class 5 student who used to have “fun” with her friends during a free period, now reads a book. “The cameras are constantly watching us,” she said. The older students have been strictly told not to venture out of school even after their classes are over. “Now teachers have told us that if they find us wandering outside school, we will be suspended for two days and parents called,” a student said.
A Class 11 student said they were not allowed to even hangout in the playground. “We have new women security staff who are constantly following us and telling us to go back to classes. Is their job to monitor our safety or to ensure that we are in class all time?” she asked, visibly upset.
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Some other students are confused and unable to comprehend the changes around them. “My school was never unsafe. I don’t know why all these cameras and additional security staff are deployed. Teachers suddenly want us to keep away from boys, even those who are our best friends,” a Class 8 student in one of the top schools in the city said.
It would seem that the beauty of childhood — which is to live without fear — has been lost in the quest for security after recent instances of sexual assault on children coming to light. Some students said, “Everyone seems to be paranoid”. A Class 11 student said she was constantly agitated about whether the driver of the autorickshaw she catches back home was a “good” man. “Earlier, I would just hop on to any auto. But not anymore,” she said.
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Among the drastic consequences of the fear over safety, two Class 6 girls stopped going for music classes after they began feeling uncomfortable even about their “nice music sir”. “He did not do anything to us. But hearing about such instances made me feel scared. I decided to quit classes,” one of them said, and added that even their sir had stopped smiling at them in the corridor. Her constantly worried mother now accompanies her to the dance school a few roads away. “I would walk alone all these days,” she said.