What's Mongar Court's Message to Schools in Bhutan?

Mongar Court has sent Ministers to jail and therefore a principal is no big deal. The judgement on the Gyalposhing land scam case sent a strong message. I don't know if it was a fair judgement but even if it was not at least everybody took a good message home. But with the principal's case there are several messages coming out. Even if the judgement was the fairest possible, the impact on the society could be unprecedented. The expected message to be taken is that corporal punishment is intolerable in schools, but there are hundreds of principals out there who are affected by the news. They must be hurt, they must be questioning and must be realizing that this could happen to them for just doing their duty.

By duty I am not saying that lashing students is their duty, their duty is to run the school well. Running the school means dealing with hundreds of young children, some of whom doesn't have sense of direction. The easiest thing to do would be to let it be. Let students do what they like, don't play parents, don't play police, don't play counselor, don't play judge and jury, don't just give a damn. Just go to the class and teach the curriculum. If there is an accident call the ambulance, if there is a fight call the police, if someone does drugs send them to jail, if there is a relationship among students call their parents and let them get married. But then school is more than that, every school has the moral duty to give every child a meaningful life.

They deserve to learn through mistakes, they deserve to stand corrected. No school will go lashing every troublesome child, but sometimes some children really need serious dealing because otherwise they are going to shatter their own dreams. Dealing with such students is no principal's favorite event. Every morning several students have to be summoned to the principal's office with different cases ranging from quarreling, stealing, fighting, smoking, drinking, doping, gang fighting... some students have their files filled with 'last warnings'
Some students ask for suspension because they want to skip school and have fun, and some even don't mind being terminated. A good principal's job is to make sure that these children don't leave school. The tempting world outside the school seems to care a lot but when these children are on their own they will realize that nobody cares about them, sometimes no even their own parents. We in the school know so much about the real world out of school and there we don't want our children to go unprepared.

I'm against corporal punishment and I'm more against mental punishment. We have dealt with children who would ask for any punishment except calling their parents. They say they will be thrown out of the house and removed from the census. When students are caught in gang fight and drug cases they beg the school to punish them any way the school likes but not to send them to the police. But we consider ourselves very wise and try the western style, we are expected to deal with them in a civilized behavior- yes we are expected to send them to jail! But we don't, we punish them, we watch them, we see them become better with few lashes. If they were sent to jail they would have never seen this life they are now living.

Principal in Jail

Mongar principal could have easily called the parents of the junior students and ask them to file a report with the police and arrest the senior for bullying and harassment. This could have saved so much of school's time and could have easily spared himself from all the problem. But the school took the responsibility to deal with the case, advice the boy and asked him to apologize. The boy took it lightly and went on to bully the junior further. The principal wired the boy and perhaps the boy may learn to fear the school rules now but the parents took the principal to the court and they won the case. Clap, clap, clap, their boy has leaned a good lesson in life, that his parents will watch his back at all times and he could go on misbehaving.

Thousands of young students across the country have heard the news that even a principal could be jailed for beating students. They must be feeling excited about it. These experimental young minds are made little fearless. And thousands of teachers must be reconsidering their roles as teachers, as caring teachers. Not to mention the hundreds of principals. If hundreds of students begin to revolt against school and take the principals and teachers to court hence I won't be surprised, I would thank Mongar court. Whatever is legally right need not necessarily be morally right.

By this I am not saying beating up students in any way is right, not all teachers and principals are as caring and good, some have cases of sexual molestation and some could be naturally violent against students for no good reason, some might thrash young children like their enemies; in such cases justice should prevail.

But we cannot go all american overnight to sue every little whip in the school just because there is a law against it. Some parents have natural court-going tendency and teachers are easy prey. We need protection too, we need legal wing in the ministry to protect us. Our job is getting more sensitive by the day and the more seriously we engage in our duties, the more vulnerable we become. We love our students, we care for them. Even in a family with two children parents resort to beating sometimes, we are family of hundreds of children.