Smriti Irani's IIT intervention to Orchid's child rape; Should HRD watch its steps?

New Delhi, Oct 24: The rape of a 3-year old girl in an international school in Bangalore was a second jolt for the

system in India, the first was when a 6-year old mentally challenged girl was raped by her teacher in a school in the city.

These are just two cases of probably a thousands of similar cases, some of which go unreported.

However, the Orchid International school incident has been an eye-opener to the loopholes in the education system, something that the HRD should concentrate on. True that the HRD minister Smriti Irani is dedicated to her work, but unfortunately in the wrong places.

The IIT and the DU curriculum goofups were controversial and criticism-worthy. Being the premier institutes of the country, these have been functioning well within their framed infrastructure. In fact, these are considered as the temple of knowledge and the ultimate benchmark for education institutes.

So, that was an unwelcome move on her part to attempt to change the curriculum or the infrastructure of any of them.

Concentrating on basic education

In the wake of increasing assaults against children in schools, it is important that their board affiliations should keep a watch on each and every institute under it. The Orchid tragedy is a case in point.

School details on the official website says that it is affiliated to NCERT / CBSE/ ICSE, while the curriculum framework is as provided by Cambridge International Primary Programme (CIPP) of the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE, Cambridge Board).

Interestingly, e-Affiliation Systems for Schools, an official website to track accreditation of an institute does not show any results for this particular institute.The rape of a 3-year old girl in an international school in Bangalore was a second jolt for the education system in India, the first was when a 6-year old mentally challenged girl was raped by her teacher in a school in the city.

These are just two cases of probably a thousands of similar cases, some of which go unreported.

However, the Orchid International school incident has been an eye-opener to the loopholes in the education system, something that the HRD should concentrate on. True that the HRD minister Smriti Irani is dedicated to her work, but unfortunately in the wrong places.

The IIT and the DU curriculum goofups were controversial and criticism-worthy. Being the premier institutes of the country, these have been functioning well within their framed infrastructure. In fact, these are considered as the temple of knowledge and the ultimate benchmark for education institutes.

So, that was an unwelcome move on her part to attempt to change the curriculum or the infrastructure of any of them.

Orchids International School does not exist in CBSE databas?

Ambiguous origins?

Sources say that the main headquarters of the school was established in the 80s. So, how did it function all these years without a proper accreditation is something that needs to be questioned.

There's more, inside source say that the school was allowed to run classes in Kannada from 1 to 5, but they had classes till 7 and they were also running classes in English-both the instances being illegal.

Where is Smriti?

Smriti Irani was never spotted in any of the two Bangalore child rape sites. Wasn't that a responsibility of the HRD too?

It is not easy to get an 'international' school affiliation, especially since there are certain guidelines that a school has to meet, among them English as a medium of instruction a must.

So, if we go by the information provided by the source, this school should not have been a part of the global club. It is strange why no such enquiries are being made and why no action is being taken.

Indeed, digging deeper will fling more dirt, but wouldn't it be better if we had security for the girl child, not just sexually or pyschologically, but also academically?

IITians and DUites would not agree more on this!