You might have come across the
shocking news of a school Principal at Haryana shot dead by her own class 12
student inside her office room on 20th January 2018. The sad news brought
shivering in my blood cells and I am unable to comprehend the gravity of the sense
of fear this incident may instill in the minds of the teaching community. I do
understand that isolated incidents cannot be considered as generalized affairs
of a community. But we need to accept that the ripples of conflicts between
teachers and students occupying headlines in the media become more frequent
than ever.
As per media reports the boy had a grudge against his principal
for punishing him few times over his poor
performance and low attendance in front of his class mates. He was earlier warned thrice that he won’t be able to
write his pre-board examination because of low attendance. On the fateful day
he went to the office room of the Principal who also taught economics to him
and asked her to accept his project report. He allegedly opened fire when the
principal refused to accept the report.
In
my opinion, his parents are the primary reason behind the gruesome incident. It
is reported that the boy broke open an almirah in his home and took the
registered revolver of his businessman father. The father told police that he
didn’t know anything about his son’s performance in school. How will he know?
Today many parents neglect their primary duties of parenting and even
they do not have time to listen to their children. Today’s children are exposed
to too much of unregulated media and more shockingly many of the parents never
know that most of the online games their children play in mobiles and computers
gradually instill sense of violence in the minds of the young children. When
parents tend to substitute money for love and parental care, what else can be
expected from the children?
The School Management and the Teachers
of the school also are equally responsible for the tragic incident. The violent
and cruel behavior exhibited by the student might have not been developed in a
day or weeks. The violent characters might have been exhibited by him in many
occasions from the childhood and unfortunately no one had time to take remedial
measures before it reaches the critical stage. Just imagine how the boy who had
resorted to murdering his Principal who enforced the rules of the institution
might have behaved with his fellow classmates.
Handling today’s children is
not an easy task. Today’s economically oriented nuclear families have changed
the entire concept of life. Attitudes of everyone in the society have changed
and children too are not exempted. Unfortunately majority of the Teachers and Head of Institutions are poorly equipped
to handle the challenges faced by today’s Education sector. In the present case
when the boy was asked why he shot the
principal, he said “she tortured me”. I am sad to say that this is a
consequence of our failure to train the Teachers and the Head of Institutions
in Positive Discipline
techniques. Moreover, educating parents about their duties and
responsibilities also now becomes the responsibility of schools and we have
completely neglected this aspect.
Both the Private sector and the Govt. sector should
immediately initiate steps to train all the Teachers and Head of Institutions
on the latest trends and strategies in dealing with students before another
such unfortunate incident occurs. Expenditures made in these training
programmes are investments made on the future of our country and I hope the school
managements would not hesitate to empower their teachers for a better tomorrow.
