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UK visa changes ‘discriminate’ against Indian students

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Asia/Inda/universityworldnews

Resumen: Los movimientos del gobierno del Reino Unido para facilitar los procedimientos de visa de estudiantes para una docena de países no europeos han causado indignación en India cuyos estudiantes, entre los más numerosos en el Reino Unido, han sido excluidos mientras que los estudiantes chinos se benefician de los cambios que entran efecto el 6 de julio.  El anuncio del 15 de junio, que amplía la lista de países de «vía rápida» de 15 a 26, se presentó en el parlamento británico el mismo día. Permite una documentación reducida para los requisitos de competencia en idioma inglés, educativo y financiero y coloca a países como Argentina, Bahrein, Camboya, China, Indonesia, Serbia, Tailandia y Estados Unidos a la par con Canadá y Nueva Zelanda, cuyos nacionales ya se benefician de procesos simplificados para visas para estudiar en el Reino Unido.  Pero India, uno de los tres países principales que envían estudiantes al Reino Unido después de China y Estados Unidos, no ha sido incluido, y se considera que sus ciudadanos están en mayor riesgo de ‘desaparecer’ una vez que ingresan con visas de estudiante, a pesar de la falta de Evidencia del Ministerio del Interior para respaldar este reclamo frente a estudiantes de otras nacionalidades. De hecho, un informe de la Oficina de Estadísticas Nacionales del Reino Unido del año pasado señaló que la mayoría de los estudiantes indios solían irse poco después de graduarse de las instituciones del Reino Unido, antes de que sus visas expiraran.En 2016, unos 7,469 estudiantes indios abandonaron el país antes de la fecha de vencimiento de su visa, mientras que 2,209 se quedaron para solicitar una extensión de visa.  «Los estudiantes tailandeses, chinos, indios y norteamericanos tenían más probabilidades de partir antes de que expiraran sus visas de estudio, mientras que los estudiantes rusos, bangladesíes, paquistaníes y sauditas tenían más probabilidades de extender su permiso para permanecer [en el Reino Unido]», según el informe. Oficina de Estadísticas Nacionales.

Moves by the United Kingdom government to ease student visa procedures for around a dozen non-European countries have caused outrage in India whose students – among the most numerous in the UK – have been excluded while Chinese students stand to benefit from the changes which come into effect on 6 July.

The announcement on 15 June which extends the list of ‘fast-track’ countries from 15 to 26, was tabled in the British parliament the same day. It allows reduced documentation for educational, financial and English language proficiency requirements and puts countries like Argentina, Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Serbia, Thailand and the United States on a par with Canada and New Zealand whose nationals already benefit from streamlined processes for visas to study in the UK.

But India, one of the top three countries sending students to the UK after China and the US, has not been included, with its nationals regarded as being at a higher risk of ‘disappearing’ once they enter on student visas, despite a lack of Home Office evidence to back up this claim vis-a-vis students of other nationalities.

In fact, a UK Office for National Statistics report last year noted that a majority of Indian students tended to leave soon after graduating from UK institutions, before their visas expired. In 2016, some 7,469 Indian students left the country before their visa expiry date while 2,209 stayed to request a visa extension.

“Thai, Chinese, Indian and North American students were more likely to depart before their study visas expired, whereas Russian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Saudi Arabian students were more likely to extend their leave to remain [in the UK],” according to the Office for National Statistics.

It additionally noted the “strong evidence” that the methodology used by the UK government is likely to “underestimate student emigration” so that student figures as part of net immigration are likely to be an overestimate.

A Home Office paper released in August 2017 on exit checks of all people known to have left the UK found that 97.4% of 181,024 international students from outside Europe left on time.

The UK government’s exclusion of Indian students contrasts with Canada which announced a ‘Student Direct Stream’ earlier this month to speed up visa processing times for students from China, India, Vietnam and the Philippines for certain categories of students who satisfy language and financial requirements.

‘Discriminatory policy’

The National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) UK expressed disappointment at India’s exclusion, which it said effectively categorises Indian students as “high risk”, and said it was unfair that Indian students should be treated differently from Chinese or other nationals on the list. It raises the question, “Will China continue to get even more favourable actions while India gets the rhetoric?” said Sanam Arora, NISAU UK president.

“Such a discriminatory move has naturally caused outrage among Indians who feel cheated and humiliated. One feels compelled to ask why India is deemed high risk only when it comes to students, while the same Theresa May government has removed the visa cap for Indian doctors and nurses?” an English-language tabloid newspaper DNA said in an editorial last Monday.

It was referring to the exemption of doctors and nurses from the UK’s annual cap of 20,700 visas announced by the May government recently amid shortages being experienced by the country’s National Health Service.

India has repeatedly raised the issue of visas for students and professionals during high level meetings, including during Theresa May’s visit to India in 2016, and most recently during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to London in April.

Indian MP, Ahmed Patel of the opposition Congress party, tweeted: “Extremely unfortunate that our students have been left out from UK’s simplified visa process,” and called for the Ministry of External Affairs to take the issue up with the British government at the “highest levels”.

The Indian High Commission in London said High Commissioner YK Sinha met with UK Minister of State for Universities Sam Gyimah earlier this month and “made special mention of the challenges regarding smoother and greater student, faculty mobilities” between the two countries.

Sinha has in the past contrasted the UK’s treatment of Indian students with countries such as Australia, Germany and France which are “actively going on to campuses in India and trying to attract students there”, he said. “There is something going wrong here because the UK has obviously been the first preference for Indian students.”

Link to trade relations

In the UK, criticism of the exclusion was linked the need to improve trade relations with non-EU countries as Britain leaves the European Union. India is seen as an important potential trading partner.

In a statement issued last Monday, James Kirkup, director of the Social Market Foundation, an independent public policy think tank based in London, said: “Being seen to discriminate against Indian students is an act of economic and diplomatic self-harm” by the British government.

The decision to exclude Indian students from new immigration rules was a missed opportunity for Britain. “Brexit means it is more important than ever for Britain to demonstrate that it is economically and intellectually open to the world. This decision sends the wrong message to India and its students,” Kirkup said.

In the year that ended in September 2010, Britain gave visas to 60,322 students from India. By September 2017, the figure had fallen to 14,081. During the same period, the number of Indians studying at American and Canadian universities had risen, according to the think tank.

Lord Karan Bilimoria, president for the UK Council for International Student Affairs, said the exclusion was an insult to India and an example of Britain’s “economically illiterate and hostile attitude to immigration”.

Excluding India from the list “is myopically short-sighted and is damaging what has always been a special relationship between our countries”.

Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer and founding chair of the UK India Business Council, said: “It is completely hypocritical that this is announced at the same time that Britain is talking about doing a post-Brexit free trade agreement with India. If this is the way they treat India, they can dream on about an FTA with India.”

According to the Home Office, 90% of Indian students who apply for a UK visa are successful, up from 86% in 2014 and 83% in 2013, and the Home Office added that Indian student visa applications are up 30% on last year. “We continue to have regular discussions with the Indian government on a range of issues, including on visas and UK immigration policy,” it said.

Fuente: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20180619132721781

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INDIA New regulatory body will push HE quality and autonomy

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Asia/India/universityword

Resumen: Un nuevo organismo regulador impulsará la calidad y la autonomía de la educación superior. El gobierno indio ha presentado dos proyectos de ley para desmantelar su actual organismo regulador de la educación superior, la Comisión de Subvenciones Universitarias (UGC), y reemplazarlo por un nuevo órgano con un papel reducido sobre el financiamiento universitario pero mayores poderes en áreas que el gobierno dice mejorar los estándares académicos Promover la excelencia en la educación superior ocupa un lugar destacado en la agenda del gobierno actual y sustituir al UGC, que se estableció en la década de 1950, se promociona como un paso importante en esta dirección. El ministro de Desarrollo de Recursos Humanos (HRD), Prakash Javadekar, tuiteó que la sustitución del UGC con un nuevo organismo que se llamará Comisión de Educación Superior de India o HECI pretende proporcionar más autonomía a las instituciones de educación superior. El Ministerio de HRD, que supervisa el sector de la educación superior, está marcando esta gran reforma como el «fin del raj de inspección» bajo el cual el gobierno supervisa y aprueba todos los aspectos de la administración y el financiamiento de la universidad. 

The Indian government has put forward two draft acts to dismantle its existing higher education regulatory body, the University Grants Commission (UGC), and replace it with a new body with a reduced role over university financing but greater powers in areas which the government says will improve academic standards.

Promoting excellence in higher education is high on the agenda of the current government and replacing the UGC, which was set up in the 1950s, is touted as an important step in this direction.

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar tweeted that replacing the UGC with a new body to be called the Higher Education Commission of India or HECI is intended to provide more autonomy to higher education institutions.

The HRD Ministry, which oversees the higher education sector, is branding this major reform as the ‘end of inspection raj’ under which the government oversees and approves every aspect of university management and financing.

The government’s view is that while disbursing grants and fellowships, the UGC has failed in the important function of ensuring quality standards.

Role in enforcing quality

An important function of HECI, according to the draft bill unveiled on 27 June, will be its powers to enforce compliance on academic quality standards and to order the closure of sub-standard and bogus institutions.

Non-compliance could result in fines or jail sentences. Currently, the UGC has no powers to take action against such institutions; it simply releases a list of such sub-standard institutions to inform the public.

HECI will also have new powers to specify minimum eligibility requirements for administrative and leadership positions in institutions. The UGC has already said a PhD will be mandatory for teaching posts at universities from July 2021 as part of the drive to improve teaching standards in universities.

HECI will also have the power to create new universities within a stated set of criteria without requiring specific legislation to set up – a move which some say opens the door to allowing in foreign-degree granting institutions within specified norms. Previous attempts to push bills through parliament to allow in foreign institutions floundered amid political opposition.

Funding controversy

Currently the UGC approves public grants for all higher education institutions in the country. The draft act stipulates HECI will focus only on academic matters and the grant-making functions would be carried out by the ministry – a controversial move even though the ministry officials claim it will “reduce rampant corruption in allocations”.

The ministry already directly funds the country’s Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology, and Indian Institutes of Management, which all face a shortage of qualified faculty.

“A separate body is required to assume the function of providing education grants to higher education institutions,” said Arvind Panagariya, professor of Indian political economy at Columbia University in the United States, and B Venkatesh Kumar, a professor of public policy and an expert on higher education leadership at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Kumar contributed reform ideas to the ministry during work on the HECI bill, which Panagariya described in a tweet as “a huge step towards the Mother of All Reforms”.

In a blog published in the Times of India newspaper, they said: “The decision to deny grant-giving powers to the HECI is a good one but transparency required that the function be vested in another independent body and not in the HRD Ministry, which is principally a policy-making body.”

“A principle of good governance is that this function be performed by an independent, arm’s length agency,” they said.

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association criticised the move in a statement issued last week saying it is “not clear how shifting the grant-related functions to the ministry will result in less interference. On the contrary, we fear that it will result in an increased direct interference in higher education.”

Tariq Zafar, former vice-chancellor of Madhya Pradesh Bhoj Open University, Bhopal, said the government should not have the power to grant funds to institutions. “If the government grants funds then they [institutions] will have to work according to the wishes of the government and their autonomy will be seriously curtailed,” he told University World News.

Others have pointed out that the UGC assesses the quality of an institution and provides funds accordingly. Removing the funding aspect will reduce the new agency’s clout.

However, the ministry has since clarified that a final decision on transferring funding approval powers to higher education institutions directly to the ministry is yet to be taken.

“No final decision has been taken to shift the grant-related functions to the ministry, even though the recommendation to separate the regulator and the grant-giving entity was made by several expert committees in the past and is rooted in sound principles of governance,» the HRD Ministry said.

“The grant-giving process will be purely merit-based and online. We promise that if there is a successor to the current grant-giving system of the UGC, it will be operated in the most unbiased and impartial manner,” an HRD Ministry spokesperson said separately on 2 July.

Third time lucky?

While the scrapping of the UGC is seen by some as revolutionary, it is the third time in recent years the government has announced bills to replace it. However, both previous attempts were quickly abandoned amid sustained criticism and opposition from the federal states which oversee 70% of the country’s universities and 90% of colleges.

The Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011, introduced under the previous government, led by then prime minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party, was discarded for many reasons including lack of consultation with the federal states and perceived violations of institutional autonomy.

Another attempt was made under the current government but was scrapped last year when academics and institutions opposed the proposed changes, including the potential for greater government interference in higher education that could result from getting rid of the UGC.

This time a consultative committee was set up in advance to provide input into drafting the new bill and the government says it has taken care to remove the shortcomings of the previous bills. It has assured stakeholders that the new entity would not infringe on institutional autonomy; instead it promises more freedom for institutional management, ministry officials said.

The federal government is confident that scrapping the UGC will receive support in most states. Currently the Bharatiya Janata Party or its allies are in power in most of the Indian states and the ruling party also enjoys a clear majority in the national parliament.

Javadekar has extended the deadline for public consultation submissions, which was originally set to end on 7 July. “To date we have received 3,000 suggestions in all, including 500 in writing. We feel that there are people still out there who wish to make suggestions, so we are extending the deadline until 20 July now,» the minister said last week.

The new act is likely to be tabled in parliament during the monsoon session, which begins on 18 July. Analysts say the new education regulator could also be helpful to the ruling party in the run-up to the general elections scheduled for early next year.

Fuente: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20180706121840226

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Una escuela india encierra en el sótano a niñas de 5 años en demanda de pago a sus padres

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Asia/India/12 Julio 2018/Fuente: RT

La Policía investiga a los directivos de una escuela en Nueva Delhi, acusados de tomar como rehenes a un grupo de niñas de cinco años para que sus padres pagaran sus deudas con ese centro docente.

Según medios locales, fueron 16 las niñas que presuntamente pasaron hasta cinco horas encerradas en el sótano de la escuela feminina Rabea.

«Encontré a mi hija sentada sobre el suelo del sótano escolar, junto con otras, en lágrimas«, dijo a New Indian Express uno de los padres, de nombre Imran.

«Cuando les preguntamos a los maestros por qué las habían enviado al sótano, dijeron que las autoridades se lo ordenaron porque no habían recibido los pagos por estas alumnas», precisó.

Otro padre, Zia-Ud-Din, dijo que algunas de las menores fueron retenidas aunque sus deudas habían sido pagadas.

«Las niñas tenían sed y estaban sufriendo de calor. La Policía nos ayudó. Incluso después de que mostré las pruebas del pago, la directora no se disculpó ni arrepintió de lo sucedido», afirmó.

La directora, Farah Diba, rechaza las acusaciones y alega que el sótano es el lugar de juegos para las niñas. «Normalmente se encuentran sentadas allí, pero el ventilador estaba en reparación aquel día», señaló a la agencia ANI.

Fuente: https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/281061-escuela-india-cerrar-sotano-ninas-demandar-pago-padres

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El ingenioso invento de Maanasa Mendu, la adolescente que podría dar luz a millones de personas en todo el mundo

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Por: bbc.com/04-07-2018

Maanasa Mendu tiene solo 15 años, pero ha logrado algo que podrían agradecerle millones de personas de todas las generaciones en muchas partes del mundo.

La adolescente de Ohio, Estados Unidos, creó una herramienta capaz de transportar energía eléctrica de manera muy asequible a países en vías de desarrollo.

Y recibió por ello hace un par de años el primer premio America’s Top Young Scientist, un concurso nacional de ciencia organizado por la empresa 3M y la organización educativa Discovery Education para jóvenes talentos científicos en la nación norteamericana.

Pero, ¿cómo surgió la idea de inventar algo para llevar la electricidad a lugares remotos?

La respuesta está en unas vacaciones familiares a India en donde vio por primera vez cómo miles de personas viven día tras día sin electricidad, asegura la joven.

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El maestro de los «pies descalzos»

Noticias

Autor: Diario El Clarín

Sanjit Bunker Roy decidió fundar en 1972, en un rincón de su patria, el Barefoot College, una universidad para los pobres.

Después de haber estudiado en los mejores y más exclusivos colegios de India, su país natal, “con el mundo rendido a sus pies” y una carrera tradicional a la vista, asistió a la peor hambruna de Bihar, en su tierra, abrió los ojos, vio morir a gente de hambre y decidió retribuir algo de lo que había recibido en su vida; para estupor de su familia, se fue a vivir a una aldea. Con una filosofía inspirada en el Mahatma Gandhi, Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, emprendedor social y educador, decidió fundar, allá por 1972, en el pueblo de Tilonia,en Rajasthan, un rincón de su patria, el Barefoot College, la Universidad de los Pies Descalzos. Nada más y nada menos, en sus palabras, que una universidad para los pobres.

Elegido en 2010 por la revista Time entre las 100 personalidades más influyentes del mundo por su trabajo con los analfabetos y semi analfabetos de poblaciones rurales de India, él mismo explicó, en una charla TED, el motor que impulsó su creación: “Entré en contacto con el saber y las técnicas más extraordinarias que tiene la gente muy pobre, que nunca son parte de la tendencia general, que no se identifica ni respeta”. Inicialmente centrado en la provisión de agua e irrigación en zonas de sequía, el proyecto pronto pasó a trabajar en el empoderamiento y la sustentabilidad. En el college son bienvenidos quienes desarrollan trabajos manuales, tienen noción de la dignidad del trabajo y demuestran poseer alguna habilidad para ofrecer y brindar un servicio a la comunidad. Construido por doce arquitectos “descalzos”, que no sabían leer ni escribir y se alzaron con el Premio Aga Khan de Arquitectura en 2002, tienen cabida allí quienes quieran desarrollar una idea, más allá de los resultados; también los fracasos se admiten. Un grupo de mujeres “impermeabilizó” la terraza, con una mezcla de elementos cuya fórmula no quieren compartir pero que hizo que no se filtrara una gota desde su fundación; un hombre con apenas ocho años de educación primaria instaló toda la red de paneles solares y, después de que un silvicultor experimentado descartara la posibilidad de lograrlo, un anciano de la aldea sugirió qué hacer para convertir la tierra árida donde erigió su establecimiento en un lugar poblado de verde.

Desde los inicios del college cientos de hombres y mujeres carentes por completo de educación tradicional, que apenas saben leer y escribir en muchos casos y no tienen posibilidad de conseguir un empleo formal, han sido instruidos para desempeñarse como maestros, dentistas, parteras, carpinteros, comunicadores, artesanos, herreros, profesores de informática, entre tantos otros. Uno de los principios que suele repetir Roy es “escuchen a la gente de los pueblos, son ellos los que tienen todas las soluciones del mundo”. Y ha puesto un foco curioso: las abuelas. “Ellas poseen las raíces más profundas, no tienen ansias de correr hacia nuevos horizontes. Con las abuelas el proyecto estará seguro”, explica. Jactándose de que la suya es la única universidad donde los profesores son alumnos y los alumnos, profesores, rastreó abuelas en Sierra Leona, Gambia, Afganistán y Cachimbo, en México, lugares donde casi todo estaba por hacerse. De este último territorio, cuatro fueron las mujeres que se formaron con los “pies descalzos”. Al cabo de seis meses de preparación, volvieron a su tierra natal convertidas en ingenieras solares y lograron el “milagro” de dar luz a su pueblo.Otra abuela iletrada es responsable de la salud bucal de siete mil chicos en Tilonia; mujeres fueron quienes construyeron la cocina solar de la que salen 120 comidas al día, y cientos de mujeres rurales replican el ejemplo, en India y en otras partes del mundo, egresadas de la particular facultad fundada por Roy.

 Una frase de Gandhi guía sus pasos: “Primero te ignoran, luego se ríen de ti, después te atacan, y entonces ganas”. Lecciones para atender, del maestro de los “pies descalzos”.

Fuente: https://www.clarin.com/opinion/maestro-pies-descalzos_0_H1jLa6NWm.html

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India’s failing education system: It is our children’s future, not our ancestor’s pride, that deserves our outrage first

Anustup Nayak

Por Anustup Nayak 

Here is a sample of what has outraged Indians over the last year: a violent mob attacked a bus full of schoolchildren to protect the honour of a mythical queen. Riots erupted between caste groups over a battle fought two hundred years ago. Young people were killed for falling in love outside their faith and for eating the meat of their choice.

We are willing to die and kill for dead queens, sacred animals, and caste history, all symbols of our past. But why is our response so muted when it comes to our children and youth, who symbolize our future?

Angry high-school students are out protesting on Delhi streets over the leaked Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) grade 10th and 12th question papers. Data analysis conducted by Geeta Kingdon shows that between 2004 and 2016, the median percentage score in CBSE’s school leaving examinations have been systematically inflated by 8%. Only 40% of our 14-18-year-olds can calculate the price of a shirt sold at a 10% discount and less than 60% could read the time from an analog clock, according to the findings of the Annual Status of Education (ASER) report. And, less than 17% of India’s graduates are employable.

None of these revelations are new. We have known for years that our education system is failing. Children are going to school but not learning much beyond “floor level tasks.” Yet, there has been no big bang policy shift, very little sustained media scrutiny and indeed no parent uprising.

Why does the bleak future of our young people not stoke our collective outrage?

Students, parents and employers all benefit from good education. But they lack the voice to press for change. Politicians, bureaucrats, and media can influence education from the outside, but they find it of no use to advance their agendas.

Till recently, the software outsourcing industry boomed. Companies flocked to hire at campuses of even second rate engineering colleges. Most of these graduates are ill equipped to do entry level jobs. Corporations spend months to reskill them rather than getting entangled in lobbying government to fix college teaching.

Politicians do not win elections, or bureaucrats get promotions on an education platform. It takes years for good education policies to show results and even for bad ones to fail. Few in public office have that kind of patience to sow and wait. Fewer have the gumption to take on the entrenched unions, cartels, and ideologues who block meaningful change in schools and colleges.

Children are the most important beneficiaries of a good education yet the ones with least power to shape it. When children are in school, they are either unaware of how little they are learning or afraid to speak up. College students sometimes raise their voices in protest, but mostly on issues tangential to their learning.

Parents choose to exit the school system rather than pressuring it to change. Millions of parents pull their children out of broken government schools and enroll them in low-fee private schools. Then they find out that even private schools do not deliver much better results. The better-off among them find refuge in tuition centres. The rest make do with what they get.

However, this pattern of exiting without a voice need not be fait accompli for Indian education. “The time for the richer Indian to secede has come to an end,” notes philanthropist Rohini Nilekani in her article for this column “The end of secession” (13 November 2017).  “The foul air in Delhi is a perfect example of a great leveller. Rich and poor alike must breathe in its health hazards,” Nilekani argues.

The leak of CBSE question papers may be the fateful “foul air moment” for Indian education. Fates of children living in Gurgaon skyscrapers hangs in uncertain balance alongside their mofussil peers.  Consider this. There will soon be 100 million under-skilled and under-employed young people on our streets. Many will be desperate, leading them to harass, loot, and molest, or to harm themselves if not others. A student commits suicide every hour in India, unable to fulfill aspirations, cope with failure, or find emotional support, according to IndiaSpend reports.

Would we keep quiet if these were your children or mine? Will they find a college of their choice? Will they qualify for a job when they graduate? How will we grow our businesses when there are so few skilled people to hire? What India story will we sell to attract foreign investors? What myth will politicians spin to get the disillusioned to vote this time?

Now is the time to cry out for an excellent education for every child.

Parents, students, and employers must demand that our institutions deliver real capability and not empty certificates. Let us stamp our vote to those leaders who can make this happen. Let us not keep quiet till we get what we deserve. But with the right to raise our voices comes the responsibility to stay invested. Media must capture this moment and ensure that those in power heed this call. It must hold them accountable for action.

It is our children’s future, not our ancestor’s pride, that deserves our outrage first. Only then can we begin to unleash the potential of our 100 million young minds.

Source of the article: https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/indias-failing-education-system-it-is-our-childrens-future-not-our-ancestors-pride-that-deserves-our-outrage-first/

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India: Teacher in sexual harassment row a repeat offender

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Asia/India/20.06.18/Por Payal Dhawan/Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

LUDHIANA : A day after Raikotpolice booked a government school teacher for allegedly sexually harassing a Class VIII school, the education department suspended him on Monday. In the suspension notice, director of public instructions (secondary) Paramjit Singh said the teacher was accused of sexual harassment by another girl student in 2016.

The official said the teacher had at that time given an apology for the incident. In the suspension notice, a copy of which is with TOI, the department has given 15 days to the teacher to give an explanation on the accusation against him.

The notice has stated that this was the second time the teacher had been accused of sexually harassing a student, so he was being suspended by the school. The education department’s action came a day after Raikot police registered a case against the teacher for allegedly sexually harassing a Class VIII student of his school.

The FIR was lodged after the school’s head had filed a police complaint against him, on the direction of Punjab State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. Following the complaint, police had booked the teacher under Section 354A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code and under sections of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

It has been alleged that the schoolgirl had to stay back at school because of bad weather, while most student had left for home, on May 2. The girl and the teacher were alone when he saw the girl, grabbed her and harassed her, it has been alleged.

The girl escaped from there and informed her family about the incident on reaching home. Her family had complained to the school against the teacher on May 4. An internal probe by the school had indicted the teacher. However, he was let-off after the matter was resolved by the village’s panchayat, and no one approached the police.

However, some village residents reported the incident to Punjab secretary (education) Krishan Kumar, who ordered local education officials to submit a report after inquiry. The report of district education officer also indicted the teacher. Taking suo-motu notice of the matter, the Punjab State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights summoned the school head and district education officer (secondary) Swaranjit Kaur.

The DEO presented a report which indicted the teacher. After this, the commission directed DPI (secondary) Paramjit Singh to suspend the teacher and the education department to lodge a police complaint.

Source of the notice: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ludhiana/teacher-in-sexual-harassment-row-a-repeat-offender/articleshow/64547454.cms

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