Sexual assault on minors: Why Bangalore schools need to be made accountable

Bangalore: Within 10 days since of a minor girl being raped allegedly by a non-teaching staff of a reputed international school in Bangalore, the IT capital was rocked by yet another shocking incident. A six-year-old girl was twice raped by a Hindi teacher – Jayashankar, 45 – on school premises and he is now cooling his heels behind bars. With this, the number of such incidents in schools, including prestigious institutions, in the last eight months has risen to nine, creating panic among Bangaloreans.

As soon as news relating to the latest incident spread, thousands of people, including parents of children studying in the school, flocked near the institution to condemn it. The turnout of the crowd was massive prompting Bangalore City Police Commissioner MN Reddi to visit the school and pacify the agitating mob. Karnataka’s Home Minister KJ George is talking tough but he has made it very clear that the onus of recruiting the staff, including the teachers and the non-teaching staff rests on the school management. It has come to the notice of the police that these so called prestigious schools do not conduct background check of staff before recruiting them.

In July, two gym instructors allegedly raped a six-year-old girl; in August it was found out that a retired government employee, who was teaching in a private school, had sexually abused seven girls; and last week, the attender of a school was held responsible for raping a minor. In all these cases, the police had clearly established that the school management had not done a thorough background verification of the candidates before recruiting them for jobs in the schools.

These incidents have brought to light the sad state of affairs in international schools and prestigious institutions, which charge a hefty sum as fee every year from parents. The annual fee for nursery section in any of the well-known schools in Bangalore is not less than Rs 1.5 lakh; in some high profile institutions, the fee is as high as Rs 12 lakh. Unfortunately, the government has no control whatsoever on them. These schools do not tolerate any kind of questions from the parents; they do not encourage parents forming an association to protect their interests; and any uncomfortable questions from them are dealt with in a stern manner. In many cases, students suffer as they are unceremoniously dismissed from the school.

Though time and again, the government has tried to exert control over the schools, it has failed. For instance, recently, a prestigious school dismissed one of its staff after he allegedly misbehaved with a girl on the premises. The school management even voluntarily approached the police and filed a complaint against its erring staff. But the school did not find it necessary enough to inform the parents of students that such a heinous crime had taken place on its premises because it feared for its reputation. It was only after the police revealed the incident to the media and the public, did the school undertake damage control measures.

As Karnataka’s Home Minister has rightly pointed out just like the police, the school management too are equally responsible for incidents happening on their premises. “It is a standard practice to screen a person, his/her background, antecedents before employing someone. How can schools bypass this basic procedure? This is appalling. At least now, the schools should mandatorily screen the background of their staff, especially the non-teaching staff in order to prevent any incident in the future,” said High Court advocate C Appaji.

In majority of the schools, the management is not accessible; parents are invited for meetings only twice a year to be informed about the academic progress of their wards. This is one of the main reasons for parents to be outraged whenever such incidents take place in school premises. The widening gap between parents and school managements cannot continue. The schools have to be more transparent and create an atmosphere conducive for all.

In this case, the Bangalore police are taking the right step by holding the management of the school equally responsible for the rape. It is to be seen under which section of the law the management is booked. This aggressive action of the police should be an eye-opener for the other schools to follow the mandatory practices before hiring any new staff.