Joeanna Rebello | TNN
Mumbai: It was 14 years ago when a crime on the premises of St Mary’s School (SSC), Mazgaon, was detected almost as simply as if the culprit himself confessed... well, unknowingly, he did. A 10thgrader had, after school hours, stolen into a classroom that kept the school’s VCR. The boy evacuated the expensive object and retreated cleanly with his prize. What then implicated him and brought him the boot? His fingerprints; he was the only student in school with 11 fingers.
Schools and colleges now can no longer rely on the damning evidence of anatomical oddities nor can they hope a thief will foolishly leave his imprint behind. Theft, unfortunately, is the least of modern education’s worries; the inventory — bullying, molestation, trespassing, vandalism, rioting — gets more violent as classrooms gain in age.
So, to catch a culprit — student, teacher, peon or intruder — or to thwart his/her very crime, academies in the city are on the hotline to surveillance experts, calling for the latest in CCTV security that can cost between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 7 lakh. Some of the schools that have footed the bills are Holy Family High School (Andheri), Bombay Scottish, Cathedral and John Connon, Jamnabai Narsee (Juhu) and Podar International School. Colleges like Burhani and Wilson, too, have joined the closed circuit.
But it is only in the last few years that Mumbai schools have begun toeing a line that, 11 years ago, delineated the margins of acceptable behaviour in a Nagpur school. The Mahatma Gandhi Centennial Sindhu High School there hooked up 185 cameras as early as 1997.
St Mary’s High School (ICSE) has fitted its campus with a battery of 28 Sony cameras, placed strategically across the school at points of high student density (the grounds, halls, canteen and corridors). “I first saw electronic surveillance of this kind in a school in Gujarat, where cameras were also installed in classrooms,’’ school principal Fr Evarist Newnes said. On the wall in the principal’s office, two Videocon LCD screens deliver the images captured by the cameras’ unblinking eyes. Occasionally, a curious face looks right back but not for long. Everyone knows Big Principal’s watching.
“We appraised the staff and students about the system before we installed it. We informed the parents via a circular; their response suggested they were happy with the extra vigilance. This is a large campus, after all, and we can’t always keep watch on every part,’’ Newnes said.
At St Mary’s (ICSE), the four different models of cameras hope to rein in indiscipline and bullying and keep the grounds free of the rare drug addict who vaults over the boundary wall from the railway tracks. But, more often, the cameras collar the scallywags who give the guard the wink. And the boys are naturally expressing rage against the machine. “We throw sand and water at it after school,’’ a sixth-grader said emotionally. The boy believes that surveillance ends with school hours and crimes committed after the principal retires are ignored. An eighth-grader suggests darkly that the older boys have plotted to damage the devices.
The decision to heighten security often has been prompted by past mistakes. Three years ago, when Cathedral and John Connon at Fort was tallying the pros and cons of digital surveillance, the management was pushed to conviction by the reminder of an incident that had occurred a few years earlier in school. “Exam papers had leaked out and we found the maintenance staff was responsible,’’ superintendent of accounts and administration Gehna Malkani said. “We installed the cameras mainly to keep an eye on housekeeping but the fringe benefit was improved student behaviour. We have been able to identify habitual troublemakers who now keep their antics low.’’ At Cathedral, the accountant’s and cashier’s offices and the room where question papers are photocopied and stored have joined the legion of usual monitored spots like entry gates, corridors, canteens, grounds and halls.
So far, however, cameras have been pardoned from most classrooms where pranks can be pulled with unstinted devilry. St Soldier Public School, Bhayandar, is one of the exceptions, where cameras keeping tabs on classes IX and X got a teacher dismissed a few months ago for laxity.
Student counsellor and psychologist Rajan Bhosle supports the trend. “The pros outnumber the cons by far,’’ he said. “Cases of child abuse are rampant, with children as young as first-, second- and third-graders being molested by the faculty or non-teaching staff. So it’s important to keep a close watch on what’s happening. Cameras can also show early signs of fire or other accidents,’’ he added. Bhosle feels it would do well to observe classroom goings-on along with corridor traffic. “Teachers need to be watched as well. Most may not be adequately trained in handling children with care and resort to old-fashioned methods of correction. Let us at least observe our teachers, if we cannt train them, so they too shoulder the onus of good behaviour.’’
But opposite opinion contends that an atmosphere fostering high ideals and ethics would be more conducive to rectitude than forcing model behaviour through scrutiny.
THE COLLEGE SCENE
Muslim co-ed college Burhani mounted eight cameras on its campus this January to keep holy its code of conduct (opposite sexes cannot walk corridors arm-locked and cellphones are banned). “Our girls come from conservative Muslim families, who need to be convinced their children are in an inviolate atmosphere,’’ vice-principal Mrs Waris explained. “We are able to maintain such an atmosphere through the vigilance of CCTV,’’ Waris said.
Wilson College’s cameras watch out for intruders. The college is still smarting from the controversy foisted on it two years ago by the National Students’ Union of India; its goons entered the college and publicly humiliated professor Vilas Athavale for alleged misconduct with a girl student. “We put up the cameras last year to keep the college safe from outside miscreants,’’ registrar Pradeep Abhyankar said. “We’ve also doubled the number of our security guards from two to four. Our motive is simply to keep the staff and students safe.’’
Schools and colleges now can no longer rely on the damning evidence of anatomical oddities nor can they hope a thief will foolishly leave his imprint behind. Theft, unfortunately, is the least of modern education’s worries; the inventory — bullying, molestation, trespassing, vandalism, rioting — gets more violent as classrooms gain in age.
So, to catch a culprit — student, teacher, peon or intruder — or to thwart his/her very crime, academies in the city are on the hotline to surveillance experts, calling for the latest in CCTV security that can cost between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 7 lakh. Some of the schools that have footed the bills are Holy Family High School (Andheri), Bombay Scottish, Cathedral and John Connon, Jamnabai Narsee (Juhu) and Podar International School. Colleges like Burhani and Wilson, too, have joined the closed circuit.
But it is only in the last few years that Mumbai schools have begun toeing a line that, 11 years ago, delineated the margins of acceptable behaviour in a Nagpur school. The Mahatma Gandhi Centennial Sindhu High School there hooked up 185 cameras as early as 1997.
St Mary’s High School (ICSE) has fitted its campus with a battery of 28 Sony cameras, placed strategically across the school at points of high student density (the grounds, halls, canteen and corridors). “I first saw electronic surveillance of this kind in a school in Gujarat, where cameras were also installed in classrooms,’’ school principal Fr Evarist Newnes said. On the wall in the principal’s office, two Videocon LCD screens deliver the images captured by the cameras’ unblinking eyes. Occasionally, a curious face looks right back but not for long. Everyone knows Big Principal’s watching.
“We appraised the staff and students about the system before we installed it. We informed the parents via a circular; their response suggested they were happy with the extra vigilance. This is a large campus, after all, and we can’t always keep watch on every part,’’ Newnes said.
At St Mary’s (ICSE), the four different models of cameras hope to rein in indiscipline and bullying and keep the grounds free of the rare drug addict who vaults over the boundary wall from the railway tracks. But, more often, the cameras collar the scallywags who give the guard the wink. And the boys are naturally expressing rage against the machine. “We throw sand and water at it after school,’’ a sixth-grader said emotionally. The boy believes that surveillance ends with school hours and crimes committed after the principal retires are ignored. An eighth-grader suggests darkly that the older boys have plotted to damage the devices.
The decision to heighten security often has been prompted by past mistakes. Three years ago, when Cathedral and John Connon at Fort was tallying the pros and cons of digital surveillance, the management was pushed to conviction by the reminder of an incident that had occurred a few years earlier in school. “Exam papers had leaked out and we found the maintenance staff was responsible,’’ superintendent of accounts and administration Gehna Malkani said. “We installed the cameras mainly to keep an eye on housekeeping but the fringe benefit was improved student behaviour. We have been able to identify habitual troublemakers who now keep their antics low.’’ At Cathedral, the accountant’s and cashier’s offices and the room where question papers are photocopied and stored have joined the legion of usual monitored spots like entry gates, corridors, canteens, grounds and halls.
So far, however, cameras have been pardoned from most classrooms where pranks can be pulled with unstinted devilry. St Soldier Public School, Bhayandar, is one of the exceptions, where cameras keeping tabs on classes IX and X got a teacher dismissed a few months ago for laxity.
Student counsellor and psychologist Rajan Bhosle supports the trend. “The pros outnumber the cons by far,’’ he said. “Cases of child abuse are rampant, with children as young as first-, second- and third-graders being molested by the faculty or non-teaching staff. So it’s important to keep a close watch on what’s happening. Cameras can also show early signs of fire or other accidents,’’ he added. Bhosle feels it would do well to observe classroom goings-on along with corridor traffic. “Teachers need to be watched as well. Most may not be adequately trained in handling children with care and resort to old-fashioned methods of correction. Let us at least observe our teachers, if we cannt train them, so they too shoulder the onus of good behaviour.’’
But opposite opinion contends that an atmosphere fostering high ideals and ethics would be more conducive to rectitude than forcing model behaviour through scrutiny.
THE COLLEGE SCENE
Muslim co-ed college Burhani mounted eight cameras on its campus this January to keep holy its code of conduct (opposite sexes cannot walk corridors arm-locked and cellphones are banned). “Our girls come from conservative Muslim families, who need to be convinced their children are in an inviolate atmosphere,’’ vice-principal Mrs Waris explained. “We are able to maintain such an atmosphere through the vigilance of CCTV,’’ Waris said.
Wilson College’s cameras watch out for intruders. The college is still smarting from the controversy foisted on it two years ago by the National Students’ Union of India; its goons entered the college and publicly humiliated professor Vilas Athavale for alleged misconduct with a girl student. “We put up the cameras last year to keep the college safe from outside miscreants,’’ registrar Pradeep Abhyankar said. “We’ve also doubled the number of our security guards from two to four. Our motive is simply to keep the staff and students safe.’’
YOU’RE BEING WATCHED: Twenty-eight CCTVs maintain a strict vigil on the St Mary’s School campus in Mazgaon
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