Sad incident at reputable school

Photo shows bruises on the arm of the victim of corporal punishment.Photo: STAR

A student of an English medium school in the capital stopped attending school since Thursday, when an administrator hit her and six others with a wooden ruler for protesting the expulsion of two classmates.
Some of her fellow students and teachers were witness to the corporal punishment Neera Habib, director (Administration) at the Mastermind School, handed down to them.
"I was so shocked. She just came, and hit me and several others," said Ayesha (not her real name), a student of class eight of the renowned school.
Corporal punishment -- both in Bangla and English medium schools -- continue to take its toll on students across the country despite a government ban on such harsh treatment of students.
The government decision came in August, 2009 followed by a High Court ruling that declared corporal punishment illegal in January this year.
Child Parliament, a child rights group, says its latest survey revealed that 68 percent students in 512 schools across the country complained they are often beaten or slapped by schoolteachers.
On Wednesday, the Mastermind school administration expelled a boy and a girl of class eight for their alleged involvement in a brawl over facebook.
Ayesha and her several classmates went to their senior administrator to persuade her to withdraw the expulsion order.
She said Neera Habib started beating them when a teacher told her that the students were shouting inside the school compound to protest her decision of expulsion.
"She broke two rulers on us," said Ayesha showing marks on her arms.
"We just wanted to tell our teachers what happened the other day and that the expulsion of the two students was unjust," she said.
Ayesha's mother was deeply shocked by the incident.
"My daughter has been studying at the school for the last eight years. The teachers could have talked to me before beating her," she said.
This correspondent visited the school to get Neera Habib's comments but she refused to talk. She sent over two junior colleagues instead, who denied the beating of the students.
However, a number of students of the school alleged that Neera Habib often resorts to corporal punishment to discipline students.
"She beat many of us by rulers on a flimsy ground in February," said a Class-X student requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The administrator beat several students of class seven in February and grabbed a female student by the hair and asked why she had got a haircut like a film actress.
Neera runs the administration in absence of school Principal Syed Fakhruddin Ahmed, who spends most of the time in Canada.