One of the top city schools conducted a workshop on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for their teaching and non-teaching staff earlier this year. As the facilitator listed out what teachers should refrain from doing, mid-way through the session one of the teachers broke down and questioned, “If a child falls down, do I pick him or her up? If the child performs well, can I pat and hug the child and show my affection.”
This situation reflects the emotion of many teachers in the city who feel that they are getting paranoid after the recent instances of sexual assault and rapes took place on school campuses last year. Another teacher of a school said that with teachers constantly thinking of how their actions or words are being interpreted and perceived the natural bond between the teachers and the students is lost. “Teachers were paranoid last year and the situation seems to have died down with media having forgotten the issue. We hope that this year no such incidents take place,” she said.
The non-teaching staff are perhaps most anxious of the lot. “The school management has told us not to wash children after they go to toilet. I feel helpless when children look at us when they want to go to the toilet. For all these years, I have done my duty, how do I suddenly stop doing this ?,” a non-teaching staff in a school in Rajajinagar said.
