Corporal punishment lands two schools in hot water

Probe committee confirms incidents, also finds both institutes are unregistered; advises education dept to shut them down 

Karachi

Provincial education secretary, Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, has been advised by a committee of the Sindh Directorate of Inspection and Registration of Private Institutions to issue directives for the closure of two schools of the city which have been found to be operating illegally.

The recommendation came after the team, which had initially been formed to probe reported incidents of corporal punishment at the schools, came to learn that both institutes – one in District Central and the other in District East – were unregistered.  

The committee was formed by director-general of the DPIS, Dr Mansoob Hussain Siddiqui, and comprises Abdul Sattar Simair as chairman, with Abdul Sattar Memon and Akbar Ali Memon as members. They were tasked with visiting both schools and meet the parents of abused students before reporting back to the directorate.

The DPIS committee found The Tutor Academy, located in Block 10, Katchi Para, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, to be illegal and unregistered with the private schools directorate. The school has only two classrooms and the teachers are untrained, the committee found during its visit.

Another school system, the Hassan Tayyab Academy, situated in Hussainabad, was found by the committee to be unregistered and to be operating illegally. The committee also claimed it received complaints from parents via telephone and electronic media.  

The director of the Hassan Tayyab Academy, Muhammad Yaseen, confirmed that the inspection committee had visited the primary school and said management had shared the relevant information about the unfortunate incident which occurred in September last year.

“I also showed them written statement of parents in which they clearly stated that they did not want any legal action against the principal involved in the matter,” he said. “Despite the fact, the principal was sacked from service due to her unwanted action.”

Commenting on the recommendation of the inspection committee to seal the primary school, Yaseen said he was not informed about it. “Both schools (primary and secondary) are in the same lane and we don’t require separate registration letters for their operation,” he claimed. “But if the government chooses to go down this path, then I too will take legal action against them. They cannot punish more than 500 students, teachers and non-teaching staff for a mistake committed by someone else. This school has been operating for the past three decades and provides scholarships to around 50 percent of its pupils.”

A video of the Hassan Tayyab Academy’s primary school principal brutally slapping a girl around was widely shared on the social media and local television channels. The video had been leaked by members of the school staff who wanted to see the principal lose her job.

Yaseen disclosed that the principal, Seema who as subsequently fired, had beaten a girl student of class four. He claimed Seema had high blood pressure while the little girl was “mentally disturbed”.

“I’ve forgotten the girl’s name but when we saw the video on the internet we summoned the principal to explain her behaviour,” he claimed. “I also personally met the family but they were not interested in taking any action against the principal. However, the school cannot ignore such bad practices and decided to properly investigate the matter.”  Yaseen claimed the academy served Seema a show-cause notice in December and after she submitted her reply, she was suspended and then subsequently sacked from service. The incident occurred in September last year, he said, but the video went viral a month later.

“We also investigated who leaked the video and have since then have installed security apparatus in the principal’s office and given the administration access to it to enable effective monitoring of matters,” he said.

“The video was shared by one employee from the administration and another from the accounts office. Earlier, it was shared on a fake page of the school and then to some other places.”

Yaseen said both girls who had shared the video had then been fired as well, since they failed to maintain the privacy of school matters and cooperate with official inquiries.

The News also made various calls to The Tutor Academy management to get their version over the matter but they were not available for comments.