"I thought if I informed my parents about the frequent punishments I faced, they would accuse me of being a bad egg who deserves such treatment," said Kumar, whose father, Rajan, a taxi driver, is himself a stern moralist.
But in August this year, Kumar’s situation crossed all limits.
Kumar and his classmates were engaging in harmless classroom chitchat as the teacher supposed to take the class had still to appear. Before he realized it, the school´s principal, Ram Pandey, had pulled the boy out of his bench and hit him several times with a bamboo stick for "making noise".
The boy´ sustained a fracture to his right arm, requiring a plaster, which the school paid for. "But the principal never apologized," says Kumar who still attends the school.
Corporal punishment continues in schools despite a Supreme Court ruling in January 2006 that parents, other family members and teachers no longer have any defense for a "minor beating".
The court also issued a directive to the Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers, asking them "to pursue appropriate and effective measures to prevent physical punishment as well as other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or abuse being imposed or inflicted on or likely to be imposed or inflicted on children."
Though the government is yet to respond to the directive, the court ruling itself is sufficient to ensure schools or teachers continuing the practice are reprimanded. However, in the almost three years since the ruling, only one case of corporal punishment at school has been filed in a court of law, according to Bharat Adhikari, officer at the Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Center (CWIN).
In the 2006 case filed against a teacher of DAV School, the court ordered the school to pay Rs 20,000 in compensation to the student, as well as slapping a fine of Rs 5,000 on the teacher involved.
"Punishment from teachers, like punishment from parents, is so ingrained in our culture, that it is accepted unless the consequences are serious," said Adhikari. "Therefore it is rare for a child to knock at the court´s door."
Unless pushed by grown-ups, children are unlikely to take legal recourse alone.
Corporal punishment can dramatically change the course of a child´s life; and in some cases, it can sometimes even end it.
In July, 2005, a 15-year-old Maryland Public Higher Secondary School girl committed suicide in her hostel after allegedly being hit repeatedly on the knuckles by her teacher.
Cases of sexual misconduct such as the July 2008 case of alleged sexual harassment of students by a Scouts teacher in Budhanilakantha school, can destroy children’s trust of elders.
Besides these extreme cases, a detailed report on the misconduct faced by children in school suggests such incidents are widespread in Nepal.
According to the 2008 report - "The Global Campaign to End Violence in Schools" by Plan International, children who face corporal punishment at school are more likely to drop out of education.
"A study in Nepal, where corporal punishment is routine, found that 14 percent of school dropouts can be attributed to fear of teachers," says the report.
Kumar of Cosmopolitan School says, "I no longer enjoy going to the school. I fear the principal. He has not even cared to ask how I am doing."
According to CWIN´s Adhikari, cases of corporal punishment at school are routinely reported at the center.
"But most children silently suffer such punishment which means reported cases can hardly indicate their prevalence," he said.
Adhikari said such punishments are more common in private schools.
The pressure on both teachers and students to do well, thereby ensuring the commercial success of the school, may be one reason teachers are more irritable and punitive in these schools, he said.
According to the Plan report, students who face violence from teachers tend to become violent themselves as they believe violence is an acceptable form of negotiating relationships.
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