Students perform with swords during school sports in Hyderabad on Thursday. (PTI)

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan. 31: A teacher in the country’s first child-friendly district caned herself repeatedly in front of her students, moving two of them to own up to theft.

But before that, another student had taken the blame to end the teacher’s agony.

The 500-odd students who assembled at the Government Model Residential School on Tuesday morning had no inkling of what headmistress Meenakshy Kutty was about to do.

Many knew that the school’s teachers were upset after Rs 650, which a student had won as prize in a competition, had gone missing.

Kutty briefly referred to the offence but did not blame anyone. She told students at the tribal school in Idukki, 300km from here, that perhaps society was to blame for creating conditions that prompted people to steal. There had to be a reason for the “stupid act”.

Then, with a cane in her right hand, she began raining blows on her outstretched left palm. She went on and on till a student came forward with a hundred-rupee note and owned up to the theft.

The teacher told the assembly to disperse and retired to her room, satisfied that she had achieved what she would not have through the usual course — caning the children.

It was then that two students came in, sobbing. They fell at her feet and confessed that it was they who had stolen the money, not the child who took the blame earlier. The children returned the Rs 650 and promised never to steal again.

As a “child-friendly district”, Idukki has taken a voluntary pledge to shun corporal punishment.

As word reached the government secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, education minister M.A. Baby was the first to call up the model tribal school at Painavu, the Idukki district headquarters.

Baby offered to send a special prize and officially acknowledge Kutty’s exemplary act. Instead, she made the minister promise to help the school improve its infrastructure. She gave him a list of demands on the phone, to which Baby agreed. The first item, an LCD projector, could reach the school next week.

Shanta Sinha, the chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, had on January 13 announced that Idukki would be a “child-friendly” district.

There would be no more pinching, spanking, caning or using threatening language in classrooms, she had told the teachers. New school buildings would be designed to create a homely atmosphere. The focus would be on taking the fear of school out of the minds of children.

The district will have a committee to monitor violence against children at home, in schools and outside.

Sinha reminded schools of the commission’s powers to act against erring teachers and officials.

But she did not want teachers to allow students to shirk studies and be a law unto themselves. They would have to be disciplined, but minus the stick.

Kutty today showed how that could be done.

Idukki, a hilly district home to settlers and farmers who had moved up from the plains, has produced some of the best sporting talents in the state, including athletes Shiny Abraham and K.M. Beenamol, but has remained on the margins in education.

The district has 454 schools, ahead only of tribal-dominated Wayanad, which has 290 schools.

The Commission for the Protection of Child Rights is a statutory body notified under an act of Parliament. It has the power to probe complaints and take suo motu notice of matters relating to violation of children’s rights. The panel is authorised to summon any person from any part of India and examine them on oath.

Under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, the panel has all the powers of a civil court while inquiring into a matter under the Criminal Procedure Code.

After inquiry, the commission can recommend prosecution or any other action it deems fit.