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Five Bareilly boys made to bathe in the open in school
The incident took place in Chhatrapati Shivaji Inter College, Bareilly where after morning assembly, principal Ranvijay Singh identified five students who, he said, had come to school without taking a shower. He said the idea was not to punish them but to encourage them to come to school neat and clean so that they may lead a healthy life.
LUCKNOW: Five students of a government aided school in Faridpur area of Bareilly district were forced to take a bath in cold water at a pumping set as punishment because their principal thought the children had skipped their morning shower before coming to school.
The incident took place in Chhatrapati Shivaji Inter College, Bareilly where after morning assembly, principal Ranvijay Singh identified five students who, he said, had come to school without taking a shower. He said the idea was not to punish them but to encourage them to come to school neat and clean so that they may lead a healthy life.
“On Monday, we checked nails, shoes, uniforms, etc during assembly and found five students who had come without taking a bath. During the interval, we took them to the school pumping set, told them to take their uniforms off and take a bath,” Singh said.
The pumping set was made operational after which the five students bathed in the cold water at around 10 am. After that they donned their uniforms and were made to stand in a line. The principal made a video in which he told students that in future they must come to school after taking a bath.
“It was not a punishment.The idea was to inculcate good habits among kids. Alongside regular teaching, we have to educate our kids about the importance of staying clean and taking regular bath. If you look at their reaction they had great fun,” he said.
While the children were unwilling to speak on the issue, many of the parents were not pleased with the idea of forcing kids to take a bath in cold water in the open. They said the minimum temperature in the district was below normal. Bareilly recorded a minimum temperature of 3.5 degrees Celsius on Sunday and 5.8 degrees Celsius on Monday. If a few students had not taken their morning shower before going to school, they should not have been forced to take a bath like that, the parents felt.
The principal himself made a video, took pictures and posted them in various school groups from where they went viral on social media. The kids were seen shivering after taking a bath in cold water. Singh said he was only promoting good practice among students.
After the bath, these kids were served a mid day meal and a banana. Chhatrapati Shivaji Inter College is a co-educational aided school from Class 6 to 12 with a total student strength 1200 . “When I joined the school as principal in 2011, it was in bad shape and now it looks like a Gurukul school,” Singh claimed.
