Why are children not safe in India's schools? (Hint: the problem is not lack of laws)

The murder of a Class 2 student in Ryan International School in Gurugram on the morning of September 8, who was found with his throat slit in the bathroom shortly after he reached school, has raised troubling questions about how safe children are in school premises. The student was allegedly killed by a bus conductor who managed to enter the same bathroom that students use and tried to sexually abuse him. Since then, there have been a series of allegations against the school for flouting security norms, including failing to maintain CCTV equipment and ensure unauthorised personnel do not enter school premises.

But while the Gurugram incident is rare in that the murder happened within school hours, deaths on school premises are not. The Hindustan Times has listed a number of deaths reported on school premises, some of them because of alleged negligence by school authorities, in various states since 2008. In 2017, four such cases (including the recent murder at Ryan International) took place in the National Capital Region alone, according to the list.

Sexual assault cases are also all too common in schools. On September 10, the rape of a five-year-old on the premises of another private Delhi school was reported. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ordered a magisterial inquiry and on Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister, Manish Sisodia met school authorities and department officials on Monday to discuss ways to ensure safety in schools.

Over the six years that Ritu Mehra was a member of the child welfare committee in East Delhi’s Dilshad Garden, the district-level body set up under the Juvenile Justice Act received two-three cases on average of sexual assaults against children within school premises every month. But most of these cases, Mehra said, did not go anywhere.

“We summoned principals several times but in most cases, the police would come back and say the child has withdrawn the case,” said Mehra, who is now associated with the child rights NGO, Pardarshita. “There is immense pressure from the school and sometimes from parents themselves [to withdraw the case].”

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (repealed and replaced in 2015) made it mandatory for a child welfare committee to be set up in each district, with the powers of a first-class judicial magistrate. The committees are tasked with looking into the care, protection, development and rehabilitation of children.

Capital crime

In Delhi alone, crimes against children in schools, both public and private, are disturbingly common, said child-rights and education activists. In the Hindustan Times list too, eight out of 10 incidents were reported in the National Capital Region.

Some prominent cases in recent years include the arrest of a teacher from a prominent Delhi school in 2013 for allegedly molesting Class 5 students and that of a Class 12 student for allegedly raping a pre-school student in a government school in Ludlow Castle, Delhi in 2014.

Meanwhile, play-schools are largely unregulated. In September 2014, cases of sexual assault on children under five were reported at play schools in Rohini and Hari Nagar.

There is also no comprehensive data on the safety of schools in a particular state or district.

Delhi’s child welfare committees report cases that come to them to the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (established under the eponymous 2005 Act) and the High Court-appointed Juvenile Justice Committee. These bodies and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights thus only maintain records of the complaints that reach their doors.

But data on cases of violence against children or criminal neglect in schools specifically is not collated separately. The education department, on its part, maintains a separate file on each school, which includes complaints and action taken, but there’s no cumulative state-wise data that gives a comprehensive picture.

In the absence of collated data and with low reporting of such incidents, there is little understanding of how insecure children can be even in school premises. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is conducting its first survey on safety and security of schools. The audit, being conducted in 70,000 public and private schools across the country, is already underway.

The surveys are being conducted mainly by students and teachers and cover different aspects of safety, including secure infrastructure, prevention of sexual abuse and social discrimination. “This will serve as a baseline test,” said Priyank Kanoongo, a member of the commission. “We hope to have some state report cards out by December.”

Many laws...

Kanoongo says there are at least 18 separate Central laws and guidelines including some national ones) governing safety across the country. “These include guidelines from the education boards like Central Board of Secondary Education, from Sports Authority of India, National Disaster Management Authority, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Health, the commission itself on corporal punishment and the Supreme Court on school transport,” he said. For sexual abuse, there is the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act of 2012.”

In addition, state governments, including that of Delhi have issued their own guidelines regulating safety in schools. For instance the Delhi School Education Act and Rules 1973, includes conditions for recognition of schools, that include various aspects of safety such a building norms and and other facilities.

That is not all. Any major safety incident in a Delhi school is usually followed by fresh policy. New guidelines on sports were issued after a boy, struck on the head by a javelin at his government school in Chittaranjan Park, died in 2013. The Ludlow Castle rape was followed by instructions on managing students, especially in schools run in two shifts.

Lawyer-activist Khagesh Jha pointed out that the Juvenile Justice Act accords considerable powers to authorities dealing with children. “India is also signatory of [United Nations] conventions on children’s rights, but those can be invoked only in High Courts or the Supreme Court,” he said.

...But poor implementation

Despite the large body of regulations, implementation is sloppy. For instance, corporal punishment was banned by the Supreme Court in 2000, but close to two decades later, Ritu Mehra from Dilshad Garden, during her term on the child welfare committee, continued to see cases of children being beaten by teachers in school. Some cases, she said, were so severe that they left children bleeding in the mouth or with hearing-loss.

Sometimes, teachers failed to break up fights between students. “In January or February, we got a municipal school student who had lost an eye in a fight,” Mehra said. “There is no monitoring. It is like no one is bothered.”

What also makes it difficult to keep tabs on whether a school is complying with all safety norms is that different state departments are responsible for enforcing different Acts and guidelines. For instance, the education department can inspect and take action against a school under the school recognition norms, but the Juvenile Justice and Pocso Acts are for the Department of Women and Child Development to enforce.

The education department often just checks if the school has all the necessary certificates (regarding fire safety, building regulations and the like) issued by other government agencies, Jha said, but cannot verify all of these through independent inspections.

Even less is done in private schools. “Inspections definitely need to be increased,” conceded Saumya Gupta, Director of Education, Delhi. “But they will not fix the problem. Inspections just make schools defensive. Vigilance has to be kept up 24 hours and by managements, parents and us together.”

Private schools have not independently taken adequate security measures, admitted Ashok Pandey, chairperson National Progressive Schools Conference, a 40 year-old association of private schools. “We do restrict access to children of those not directly working with them – drivers, peons and other non-teaching staff,” he said, referring to the Ryan International case in which the accused, a conductor, had allegedly entered a school toilet also used by children. “But at some points, at the time of arrival or dispersal, it becomes difficult to keep track of who has gone where.”

He continued, “But in general, we are not very conscious of security. The guidelines and laws have not been made guiding principles of our daily functioning. In the process, we are losing the trust of parents. We have to now develop systems keeping the worst scenarios in mind.”

Cases go unreported

Ashok Kumar, director of Dr AV Baliga Memorial Trust, an education and child rights NGO, said it is hard to convince parents to lodge a complaint or to get children to open up about assaults.

Kumar said that he suspects a Class 9 student in Holambi Kalan, a slum area in North West Delhi, is being abused at school. “She was doing well but has suddenly grown depressed, stopped attending school and even attempted suicide at home,” he said. “Teachers at our [remedial education] centre tried to talk to her recently but she would not say anything. Reporting of abuse cases has increased after Pocso [Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences] Act but most cases still go unreported.”

Baliga Trust encourages children to speak up but there are limits to what it can do. “We work in areas with migrant populations,” said Kumar. “Often families shift and we are left dealing with the cases.”

Rajiv Kumar, from Pardarshita related the story of a Uttam Nagar-based organisation which unsuccessfully tried to convince the family of a primary-school boy who had been sexually abused at school to report the incident. “The parents simply refused even though the boy, he is in Class 5 or 6, had been bleeding,” said Kumar.

Enakshi Ganguly Thukral of Haq Centre for Child Rights explained the reason for parents’ hesitation. “The entire legal system is so cumbersome, families do not want to get into it and think the child will forget,” she said. “They also fear vindictive action from the school. Parents are a disempowered lot.”

The lack of reporting, lawyer-activist Jha said, leaves children even more vulnerable to attacks. “A rapist is likely to begin by molesting others and the lack of action emboldens them,” he said. Gupta agreed.

Activists agreed that Guidelines for Prevention of Child Abuse that were issued to ensure compliance with the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act 2012 have been largely ignored. “Many schools do not even know it exists,” said Thukral.

Empowering parents

To address the problem, Baliga Trust created bal suraksha dal or children’s protection groups in the communities it serves – the slums of Holambi Kalan, Mangolpuri and Narela. They are composed of community members and cater exclusively to government schools. For private schools, “parents must be empowered first,” said Thukral. “They must be far stronger [and] much more involved, with a far greater voice in management.”

Ashok Kumar recommends that schools undertake “vulnerability scanning” – a safety audit – and more frequent inspections. Thukral agreed. “There should be regular auditing, involving parents and senior students,” she said. “Safety protocols must be put in place and police verification conducted for all employees”. Investigations into the Ryan International case found some of the staff, including the accused, had been hired without conducting police verification. “The management must know it cannot get away,” Jha said. “It is the management that employs staff and signs contracts for outsourced services.”