B.Ed Practicum for 4th sem students: Course 1.4.6 Gender, school and society

Visit schools and study the sexual abuse and sexual harassment cases

Introduction:

Child sexual abuse is generally defined by law as any sexual behaviour involving a person under the age of consent – usually 16 years of age. Sexual harassment is any unwelcomed or unwanted sexual behaviour or pressure that embarrasses, humiliates or intimidates and individual. Sexual harassment can be physical, verbal and non verbal and visual, such as staring or gestures that are suggestive or sexual.

It encompasses a diverse set of problem behaviours, including exposure of genitals, producing or showing sexual images, sexual harassment, grooming and procuring, and contact offences ranging from sexual touching through to violent sexual assaults causing physical injury and in rare cases death. In schools, sexual involvement of a staff person with any student, regardless of age, is likely to be prohibited by school policy, teacher registration rules, and sometimes also by law. Sexual activity is common among children and especially among adolescents, and is rarely harmful. It is usually considered sexually abusive when there is a significant age-gap (usually 3-5 years), when it involves violence, aggression, or undue pressure, or when it occurs despite the unwillingness of one or more of those involved.

THE PROBLEM:

A clear conception of the problem is the starting point for effective prevention. In schools, the most likely problem will be abuse among students themselves. This is because there will usually be many more students than staff, and particularly in high schools because many students will have reached or be approaching puberty and will not yet have established adequate behavioural controls. Sexual teasing, bullying and ‘initiations’ have historically been common in schools and other youth-oriented organisations.

Abuse of a student by a known adult is the next most likely problem. Both the opportunity and the conducive conditions are greatest for those adults whose roles involve sustained close involvement with students, particularly those that involve care of especially-vulnerable students (e.g. marginalised, maltreated or disabled children), and those that involve emotional or physical intimacy (e.g. counselling, pastoral, nursing, or coaching roles).

Abuse of a student by a school visitor or passer-by is probably least likely, though perhaps the most dangerous because of possible abduction and physical harm.

It is important to avoid stereotyped conceptions of the problem. Children are much more likely to be abused by someone they already have a close relationship with than by a stranger. It is possible that a determined serial abuser may surreptitiously seek employment or other involvement in the school in order to create opportunities to abuse, but it is probably much more likely that abuse-related motivations arise for the first time during the course of the potential abuser’s involvement with a particular child or children.

There are some prevention techniques for sexual abuse in school settings:

1. Access to the school should be controlled. Routine employment screening should be supplemented with careful reference checks.

2. Direct questions might be asked about any informal concerns about behaviour in previous roles and settings.

3. Visitors should be required to report to the administration office and sign-in, and for younger children a pick-up register should be maintained. In both cases identity checks should be considered.

4. Anyone loitering near the school should be monitored and approached as appropriate.

5. Students should be engaged in resilience-building activities. These may be universal (e.g. involving all students in building self-confidence and positive peer inclusion) or targeted (e.g. ‘cocooning’ of vulnerable students).

6. Resistance-training models (teaching self-protection behaviours) may also be considered. Other student-focused activities may include respectful relationships education and responsible bystander training. 

7. All staff should be provided with high-quality training aimed at establishing a clear and valid conception of the problem and its dynamics. Credentials of trainers should be carefully checked to ensure that myths and unhelpful ideas are not transmitted.

8. Staff should be educated in a culture of extended guardianship where the responsibility for prevention is seen as an ordinary responsibility of all adults. Mentoring and support should be provided for staff experiencing personal problems.

9. Rules about staff-student relationships should be unambiguous, widely disseminated, and supported by in-house staff training.

10. A key focus should be on clear and appropriate personal-professional boundaries, but severe rules prohibiting any physical contact or appropriate care behaviours should be avoided.

Execution of the selected practicum:

Visit schools and study the sexual abuse and sexual harassment cases

Aims and objectives of the practicum:

The aims and objectives of the practicum are:

1. From this practicum the student-teacher will be able to find out the information about the sexual abuse and sexual harassment cases.

2. From this practicum the student-teacher will become an expert in implementing awareness programmes through a proper analysis on the sexual abuse and sexual harassment cases.

Step-wise Execution of the practicum:

To execute the practicum, I selected three high schools for an investigation in the town as samples. Visiting these schools, we searched for information on sexual abuse and sexual harassment. For this purpose, I have mainly considered co-educational schools and girls’ school.

Presentation Of Collected Data

Index:1 : General Information

Data	School-1	School-2	School-3
Name of the school
Address
Location (Village/Town)
Number of Pupils (Boys)
Number of Pupils (Girls)
Number of male teachers
Number of female teachers
Number of male staffs
Number of female staffs
Medium (Bengali/English/Hindi)
Approved board/council

Index: 2 : Information on sexual abuse and sexual harassment

Organized questions	Information gathered from school 1	Information gathered from school 2	Information gathered from school 3
1. How much are you aware of the Vishakha Guideline?
2. What is your positive role in the prohibition of corporal punishment mentioned in the RTE Act-2009?
3. Whether there are any signs of fearful environment of pupils (Physical, mental, emotional and providing extra stress)?
4. Whether there is a separate women’s cell in the school?
5. Whether there are separate toilet facilities for students both boys and girls?
6. Whether there are separate arrangements for girls in co-educational schools?
7. Whether the school has CCTV system?
8. Whether there are any reports of sexual abuse and sexual harassment at the school in the 2018-2019 academic years?
9. What steps have been taken to protect the girls in the school?
10. How much encouragement is given to the students about the harmful effects of sexual abuse and harassment through meetings, committees, discussion or co-curricular activities?
11. Whether girls in the school are made aware of good touch and bad touch?
12. Whether there is any information about display of abusive language or eve-teasing to girls in the 2018-2019 academic years?
13. Whether the school has a complaint box for reporting incidents of sexual harassments?
14. How do authorities of school remedy sexual abuse and harassment allegations in the school?
15. Whether there is a psychological counsellor in the school?
16. Whether there are any allegations of sexual harassment against colleagues at the school?
17. Whether awareness programmes have been conducted in the school by showing films on sexual harassments like “Hami”?

Analysis & Interpretation of collected data

We have to analyse and explain the data, obtained from schools. Steps need to be taken on how to deal with sexual abuse and harassment organised in schools. School need to be reminded of RTE Act-2009, Vishakha Guidelines 2016 so that they can take initiative to solve all those problems.

Significance of the Practicum:

Need and Significance of the Practicum are as follows:

1. Student-teacher will gain knowledge about sexual abuse and sexual harassments.

2. Student-teacher will gain knowledge about the causes of sexual harassment.

3. Student-teacher will gain the idea of various laws and justice system to remedy sexual harassment.

4. Students are informed of recent incidents of student-teacher abuse and harassment.

5. Student-teacher will gain an idea about the sexual abuse preventive measures.

Conclusion:

Victims of sexual harassment in school are not healthy mindsets. It highlights the abominable and demonic aspect of our society as schools are miniature of the society. Only real education awareness and a positive role of the teacher society can solve this problem.