Education- At what Cost
“Stop hanging out late night, you will be safe.” “Stop wearing revealing clothes and you will be safe.” “Stop going to school, or you will be assaulted and murdered….” . Rape and sexual assault cases seem like the one type of crime where every new incident seem to open a new box of ideas for the perverts lurking around us. There was a time when nobody could have given thought that such incidents could take place in schools. Then there was one incident followed by another till it became a common happening in our schools. Seems like reading about it in newspapers lead people into thinking, “Oh, how come I never thought of this, Let me try it on a school kid as I could scare the child and offend him again and again without much to worry.” The crime propagates the idea and India being infamous for delaying justice, people don’t give a shit about the outcome. Most of them are even positive about the fact that they won’t be caught or even if they do, it will be a long time before any sentence is meted out.
Parents can take precautions everywhere when it comes to their child but are completely helpless when it comes to something happening in school.
Pradyuman’s parents did everything right from their perspective. They even took responsibility for dropping him at school and picking him up everyday by themselves. The schools in our country especially in the metro cities charge a hefty amount of money with unjustifiable fee hike every year. And still incidents like these have been on a constant rise. Children have been scared into submitting to sexual violence again and again, Such cases only coming to light by sudden change in behaviour of the child or the child coming home bleeding from his private parts. It has been observed time and again that children should be taught about good touch and bad touch so that they can protect their bodies from being exploited. Pradyuman took a stance to resist and ended up losing his life.
Severe and immediate punishment to the culprits can go a long way in discouraging criminal mindset. Since strict action is not taken at one go, people have the audacity to repeat the same things again and again. Parents keep on spending money on their child’s education while schools keep on increasing their fee every year. When it comes to money Education has been made a business. Parents agree to all these with dreams of their kid’s bright future on their minds. But looks like the choice we are facing today is between a kid’s life and a kid’s education. And we all know what the choice is gonna be until the Judiciary takes immediate action against the culprits as well as strictly regulate safety in schools.
