NEW DELHI, INDIA, July 26, 2002: Should corporal punishment be banned in schools? Is the curriculum too much for schoolchildren to bear? Why should children be deprived of the five-day week which their parents enjoy? National Human Rights Commission chairman, Justice (Retired) J. S. Verma, has decided to interact with school-goers at four regional schools run by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Parents of schoolchildren in the Naraina area of New Delhi filed a petition protesting the long school hours, curriculum load, excessive homework even during vacations and corporal punishment in the name of enforcing discipline. Rajendra Kumar, the Delhi government’s Director of Education, said despite a total ban on corporal punishment in the capital region’s schools, reports of cruelty on children kept coming in. “Teachers need to be trained, made sensitive and more humane towards the needs of children,” he said.
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