The Sacred Trust Between Teacher and Child

By Desk Editor Last updated Aug 24, 2026

Firdous Ahmad Najar

The real success of an education system is not merely that children learn their lessons. It is that they enter a classroom every day with confidence, return home safe, respected, and emotionally secure, knowing that the teachers entrusted with their future will protect them.

Some incidents do not merely shock a society; they force the entire nation to look into its own conscience. The horrifying incidents recently reported from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir have raised deeply disturbing questions about the safety, dignity and protection of children in institutions that are supposed to be their second home.

In Visakhapatnam, a six-year-old kindergarten student reportedly collapsed following an alleged incident of scolding, humiliation and physical assault in the classroom and was later declared dead at a hospital. CCTV footage reportedly captured the disturbing events. In Kishtwar, a Class 5 girl reportedly lost her life following an unsafe termination of an advanced pregnancy, with allegations involving the headmaster of her school. The allegations in both cases must be investigated thoroughly, impartially and according to law, and guilt must be determined by the competent authorities. But regardless of the final legal findings, these incidents are a profound warning to the entire education system.

A school is not merely a building where children go to study. For a child, it is a second home. For parents, it is a place where they entrust their most precious possession to another human being. A teacher is therefore not simply an instructor; a teacher is a custodian of a child’s safety, dignity, honour, confidence and future. The teacher-student relationship carries a sanctity that cannot be measured merely by professional duty.

The Visakhapatnam incident, if established as alleged, should be an eye-opener for every teacher. Punishment, humiliation, physical assault and unnecessary scolding must have no place in a modern classroom. A teacher may be firm, but firmness should never become cruelty. A teacher may correct a child, but correction should never become humiliation.

Our classrooms are diverse. Every child enters the classroom with a different personality, family background, emotional condition, learning ability and physical state. A teacher may not know what a child is silently going through. There could be children struggling with critical medical conditions, emotional difficulties, anxiety, trauma or other problems that may not be visible to the teacher. A child who appears inattentive, restless, weak or disobedient may actually be struggling with something far more serious.

Therefore, punishment is not merely ineffective; in certain circumstances, it can be extremely dangerous. A single act of physical punishment, harsh scolding, or public humiliation may have consequences that no teacher can foresee. What appears to a teacher to be an ordinary act of discipline can become a moment of fear and trauma for a child. In some tragic circumstances, as in the Vishakhapatnam case, such an experience may turn into a fatality.

How can we expect meaningful learning from a classroom in which a child is in continuous fear? Learning requires connection, curiosity, confidence, and the freedom to make mistakes. Fear destroys all of these. A frightened child does not learn better; a frightened child learns to remain silent.

Every classroom belongs equally to every child: the intelligent and the struggling, the obedient and the disobedient, the confident and the shy. The responsibility of a teacher is to reach every child according to his or her needs rather than forcing every learner through a single window of learning.

Teachers must remain the true custodians of a child’s divinity, honour, and respect, particularly when it comes to a girl child. A parent does not normally leave his young daughter alone outside the home even for five minutes without feeling concerned about her safety. Yet the same parent leaves her at school for the whole day and returns home with a sense of confidence. Why? Because the sanctity of the teacher-student relationship gives him the belief that his child is in safe hands.

It is therefore the moral and professional responsibility of every teacher to protect that trust. A teacher should be approachable, compassionate, encouraging and emotionally supportive, but professional boundaries must always remain intact. Loving, appreciating and respecting a child does not mean crossing physical, emotional or ethical boundaries. Genuine affection for a child is expressed through protection, encouragement, respect and responsible conduct.

The Kishtwar tragedy, with its deeply disturbing allegations, raises an even more painful question: what happens when the person entrusted with protecting a child allegedly becomes a source of danger? Children naturally place enormous trust in their teachers. When that trust is allegedly violated, the consequences extend far beyond the individual child. It shakes the confidence of parents and damages the credibility of the entire teaching fraternity.

Schools must therefore have effective child-protection mechanisms, confidential complaint systems, regular awareness programmes and proper monitoring. Teachers and school heads must be trained to understand child safety, professional boundaries, positive discipline and the legal and ethical responsibilities associated with working with children.

Parents, too, cannot leave the entire responsibility to schools. The strongest protection for a child begins with communication at home. Parents must create an atmosphere in which children can speak openly about everything that happens to them during the day. A child should never fear that speaking about an uncomfortable incident will result in anger, blame or disbelief.

Children should be taught, in age-appropriate language, about good touch and bad touch, personal privacy, bodily boundaries and appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. They must understand that nobody, regardless of position or authority, has the right to violate their personal boundaries. They should also be encouraged to immediately tell their parents or another trusted adult if anyone makes them uncomfortable, threatens them or attempts to cross those boundaries.

The government and administration have an equal responsibility. Child protection cannot depend only upon the moral character of individuals. There must be strong institutional safeguards and strict laws. Crimes against children, particularly abuse committed by persons occupying positions of trust and authority, must receive strict punishment, proportionate to the gravity of the offence.

The law must send such a strong message that anyone contemplating such a crime thinks a hundred times before acting. The fear of the law must stand between a criminal intention and an innocent child. There should be no space for institutional protection of offenders, unnecessary delays, or compromises that undermine justice.

The objective, however, should not simply be punishment after a tragedy. The greater responsibility is prevention. Government departments, school administrations, teachers and parents must work together to create an environment where abuse is difficult to commit, easy to report and impossible to conceal.

The teacher-student relationship remains one of the noblest relationships in society. It connects innocence with experience, curiosity with knowledge and childhood with the future. But its beauty survives only when trust is protected.

Let every teacher take these incidents as an eye-opener. Stop physical punishment. Stop humiliating children. Stop using fear as a tool of discipline. Replace punishment with understanding, humiliation with encouragement and fear with confidence.

Let every parent remain close enough to notice what a child may be unable to express. Let every school establish systems that protect children. And let the government create and enforce such strict and effective laws that no person with criminal intentions can dare to exploit the trust placed in them.

The real success of an education system is not merely that children learn their lessons. It is that they enter a classroom every day with confidence, return home safe, respected, and emotionally secure, knowing that the teachers entrusted with their future will protect them.

That is the trust a teacher must never betray, the responsibility a parent must never neglect, and the duty a government must never compromise.

The writer can be reached at njfirdous090@gmail.com.