Government school teacher suspended for beating students

Tirupur: A mathematics teacher was suspended for resorting to corporal punishment as students didn’t complete the homework on Tuesday.

Around 180 students from villages including Manickampalayam, Poothapadi, Singampettai, Ammapettai, and Sullimedu were studying in Alangariyur panchayat union middle school in Erode district.

Selvaraj S of Bhavani was working as mathematics teacher in the school for about seven years. On Tuesday afternoon, he beat 12 Class VII girls after they allegedly failed to complete homework given by him, A Eesan, a villager said.

“He has beat them with a plastic geometric scale on their hands. Their palms and fingers were swollen. The injured students informed their parents and villagers, who staged a protest in front of the school demanding action against Selvaraj. Meanwhile, the students were taken to a nearby hospital,” Eesan said.

Soon, the district school education authorities and police reached the school. After an enquiry, Bhavani district education officer K Palani suspended Selvaraj.

In his order, he cited the incident and stated, “The graduate teacher (BT assistant) Selvaraj has totally neglected his academic work. He has evaded responsibility and neglected his duty of teaching. It is necessary to consider the public interest here, so, he was placed under suspension under Section 17 of the TN Civil Services (discipline and appeal) rules.”

Eesan further said, “We have heard that Selvaraj has initiated activities like bringing reverse osmosis water plant to help students understand concepts better. However, we don’t know what pushed him to punish students severely. Moreover, we also have submitted a petition to the school education authorities to transfer the existing teachers, and bring in other eligible teachers on Tuesday.” Selvi K, parent of Class V student felt , “For the last few weeks, it seemed there was unrest in the school, especially because of alleged groupism among the teachers. Moreover, Selvaraj might be facing problems in his life. These all could have pushed him to behave out of character.”