‘Discipline is Missing in Many’: Bengaluru Teachers Quit Jobs Over ‘Harassment’ by Students in Class

Gone are those days when students were scared of their teachers. Now, it is the other way round. In Bengaluru, cases of teachers quitting their jobs have surfaced in the past few weeks.

Some teachers complain about students talking to them in an “obscene” and “vulgar” manner.

“I teach mathematics in this reputed private school in North Bengaluru. I have been a teacher all my life and very happy about it. But of late, I wake up worrying that I have to go school and teach at a particular class. I make a clear point that all students are not like this, there are a few from well-off families that behave this way. But their nuisance has been so much that I decided to put down my papers,” said a female teacher on request of anonymity.

Another teacher, who teaches English in a reputed school, said, “The minute I enter the class, I can hear a couple of loud whistles that subdues the good morning wishes of the entire class. In between, I am either explaining a poem or a prose, the comment comes straight at me – unapologetically.

“Dialogues of romance and ‘I love you’ are very common and probably the most decent ones that I hear. Some are such that I wouldn’t want to tell anyone. It’s either on the shape of my body, the way I walk, the colour of my skin or lips and what not. I raised my voice once and they stooped so low, I burst into tears later. I didn’t want to step into that class ever again and I resigned instantly. Nothing is same after that,” she explained.

There are times when a teacher raises their voice against a student, parents visit the school and start abusing the teachers in front of everyone. This sends out a wrong message to children that they can say or do anything. “Discipline is missing in many children these days,” the school managements have said.

D Shashikumar, secretary, Karnataka Association of Management Schools (KAMS), said gone are those days when “teachers were revered as Gods”. “We are a society following Gurubhyo Namaha, isn’t it? Definitely not now… This is a rather disastrous time when teachers are fearing students.”

KAMS has written a complaint to the child rights’ commission on the matter and asked them to provide a solution. The authorities say counselling children, especially teenagers, is the only way out. But the school management and teachers don’t seem to agree that it will solve the issue.

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