Beldih Church School in Jamshedpur on Wednesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, June 29: Left red in the face by the cane antics of an “untrained” teacher, Beldih Church School today went on a damage control overdrive, promising to dismiss her and introduce a slew of measures, including anger management classes for mentors, to save the reputation of the five-decade-old institution.

Faced with criticism from guardians and to allay fears of other pupils, many of whom are still scared to attend classes, vice-principal S.P. Sahu today met 28 parents of Class IX A students and conveyed the decision of teacher Nilanjana Chatterjee’s suspension and imminent dismissal.

Besides Sahu, school secretary Ajit Kumar Das and other members of the management committee were present at the meeting.

Sahu conceded that yesterday’s “inhuman” incident, arguably the first in any school in the steel city, had compelled them to think of adopting various measures to preserve an ambience conducive to academics.

Yesterday, physics teacher Chatterjee had asked six girls of Class IX A — Gulbasa Parveen, Simran Arora, Amrita Kumari, Saazia Aftab, Ruksar Ahmed and Shion Alice — to do sit-ups for allegedly creating ruckus.

When they failed, she caned them till Ruksar and Simran fainted. All the six traumatised girls had to be admitted to Tata Main Hospital, from where Shion and Ruksar have been released so far.

Sahu has also hinted that BEd degree will be made mandatory for all teachers of the school now that it has come to light that Chatterjee — a Beldih Church School alumini — did not have one.

“She was not trained. On several occasions, we asked her to do a BEd course (but she paid little heed). Henceforth, we will be more stringent. A teacher with BEd degree is equipped to deal with situations better and under no circumstances will mete out corporal punishment, thus inflicting injuries on students,” the vice-principal said.

Das explained some of the immediate remedial measures the school was adopting. While the school management will bear the medical expenses of the six students, they have also been spared fears of first-term examinations scheduled to start from July 11. For them, the average of only the second term and annual examinations will be taken into account for promotion.

The school has also decided to dismiss Chatterjee who has been in service for 12 years. “We know she is short-tempered. But we cannot dismiss her outright, we will wait for an internal inquiry report for which other students will be questioned. The report will be ready in two days,” Sahu said.

In the long term, Sahu told The Telegraph, that counselling sessions were being seriously mulled for teachers to help them cope with the pressure of handling often-recalcitrant students as well as domestic issues. “We had been sending our teachers to counselling sessions conducted by NGOs at regular intervals, but now we might have to conduct it at the school level and in a more structured manner,” she said.

Sahu said the school had provided a report on the incident to the Bistupur officer in charge Pramod Kumar Singh after he sought one. She, however, pleaded ignorance about any investigation by the district education officer or district superintendent of education.

The Jamshedpur Abhibhavak Sangh, an organisation of parents, has, meanwhile, lodged complaints with the district superintendent of education and the district education officer, seeking an independent probe.

“My daughter is scared. She did not come to school today. Instead, I came to meet the vice-principal. The school management has to ensure that our children do not become victims of violence on campus,” a father, not willing to be named, told The Telegraph.