TN schools to have special supervisor for teachers’ safety

With violence against teachers, especially in State-run schools, having increased in the recent past, the State government will appoint a ‘special supervisor’ or a panel in each institution to identify discourteous students and provide counselling to them. Authorities are also planning to engage counselling experts who would visit schools regularly.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that since 2021, more than 10 incidents of attacks against teachers were reported even though schools reopened for a short period of time. Most were from higher secondary schools. “In December 2021, a Class 11 student slapped the English teacher in a school at Masinaickenpalayam village, Hosur. The same month in Krishnagiri district, another Class 8 teacher was attacked by a mob following a sexual harassment complaint,” the official said. “In March this year, a student in Aathur at Salem district tried to attack his teacher, who asked him to get his hair cut,” the official said.

School headmasters will identify teachers or non-teaching staff members, wishing to handle irate students and give them proper guidance. The official said that the government is also mulling bringing about a ‘teachers’ employment security rule’. Recently, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi had condemned the attacks. Referring to the recent incidents, Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Association president P K Ilamaran said the government should bring in the ‘teachers’ security act’.

S Gowthaman, a student counsellor in the city, said students in government schools were idle since the 2020 March lockdown without even having online classes like in private institutions. “The sudden school discipline has frustrated them and it has to be dealt with carefully,” he said.