I’ll be watching you

A cold, uncomfortable feeling creeps under your skin as you try and think about the time you casually sauntered into the school’s premises. But there’s more. The prospectus teasingly asks you to wait patiently till point #7, where the mystery is unravelled. Now the discomfort transforms into disbelief. That ‘Somebody’ is a network of Close Circuit TV (CCTV) cameras fixed in every corner of the school—classrooms, laboratories, the playground, the clerk’s office, the canteen, even the bathrooms. Principal Deepak Bajaj’s explanation is simple: ‘‘I like to know what’s happening in every corner of my school. It’s my prime concern and duty.’’ The school is also the subject of a documentary, The Great Indian School Show, by documentary film-maker Avinash Deshpande.

After the MMS controversy in a Delhi school last year, electronic surveillance systems are being adopted in many schools across the country, as the only foolproof way to monitor student behaviour on the school premises. Most

of these schools are upgrading their systems, often to an extreme degree, as in the case of MGCS High School, Nagpur.

Here, the CCTV footage beams out of monitors not only in the principal’s office, but also in his residence. He can even watch every movement of the students on his Internet-enabled mobile phone and laptop, wherever he is. On the surface, Bajaj is a study in contrasts. The

44-year-old businessman-turned-principal, who also owns the school, claims to have the best team of teachers in Nagpur. Yet he scrutinizes every teacher’s performance inside and outside the classroom. He tells you that children need their share of independence, and in the same breath boasts of his next order to the CCTV dealer: a zoom facility that will enable him to see each word written by a student in his or her textbook. He also admits that Valentine’s Day kept him unusually busy switching monitors, lest he missed a disobedient rose or card being exchanged in his co-ed institution, blemishing its hallowed culture. At this point, his cellphone rings to the tone of Aashique Banaya Aapne. A man of contrasts is perhaps the mildest way to describe him. Control freak or Big Brother is more like it.

The largest school in Nagpur—with 10,000 students and 400 staff members, spread over six acres—is a decrepit structure. Cracked floors, creaky tables and chairs, and dilapidated corridors are more pronounced because of the state-of-the-art CCTV network worth Rs 15 lakh.

One dozen television monitors flashing images of the 98 classrooms, interspersed with pictures of corridors, the playground and staffrooms dominate one side of the wall. On his table rests his latest acquisition—a flat-screen computer monitor on which four images flash simultaneously. Further ahead, a 63’’ projection television ensures that each image can be blown up to observe every minute detail in the room. ‘‘We started with some 100 cameras in 1998, went on to 185 in 2000 and now have 250 of them covering every inch of the school area. It’s the only school in Asia to have such a huge number of camera installations,’’ says Bajaj proudly. ‘‘We also have one in the clock tower at the entrance of the school. I watched you when you came in,’’ he adds.

By this time, you’re likely to brush off that creepy feeling from being watched for two minutes. Because you’re trying to put yourself in the shoes of the children, who go through six to seven hours of surveillance every day. The logic behind it all falls flat. ‘‘As my school grew in terms of classes, staff and area, I found I was not able to monitor it the way I wanted to, especially when it came to supervising the teaching by the staff,’’ says Bajaj. He claims he fired a teacher after his monitors showed her hitting a child, and a truant student was caught stealing on camera. ‘‘Discipline among students has enhanced on one hand and teaching has improved on the other,’’ he asserts.

This is not the only school in the country armed with electronic surveillance systems. In Nagpur itself, three other schools—RS Mundlay High School, Guru Harkishan School and Shree Guru Hargobind High School—have followed suit, making it a trend in the city. Principal Pinky Virdi of Guru Harkishan School has installed 30 cameras all over the campus. ‘‘How else am I to keep an eye on all four floors of my school? I want to make sure students are not up to pranks when the teacher is writing on the board and that there is no copying during examinations,’’ she says.

The same logic is echoed by reputed schools in Mumbai, such as Podar World, Bombay Scottish, Cathedral and John Connon and Holy Family High School; Chandigarh’s Shishu Niketan and

St Peter’s School; Bangalore’s Vidya Niketan and Sophia’s Girls High School; and Pune’s Bishop’s High School.

‘‘The cameras are important to us from a security point of view. We need to monitor who is picking the children up, who is dropping them off, as well as to monitor the entry and exit of strangers,’’ adds Prema Rajagopal, principal, Vidya Niketan School, Bangalore. She has installed 16 cameras—most of them in senior classrooms—following an incident wherein some students trashed tables and chairs and refused to own up. Now Rajagopal, sitting in her office located in a building away from the school complex, has a permanent eye on activities on the classrooms of standards VIII, IX and X. Even if she fails to notice a prank while it is being played, she can always bank on the recorded footage stored in her hard disk for up to 15 days.

So is this the latest method for maintaining the perfect standard of discipline in Indian schools? ‘‘Nonsense,’’ says Vidya Yevdekar, director, Symbiosis group of institutes, Pune, who heads two schools and various colleges across the city. ‘‘The concept is like policing. If you have a good team of teachers, there’s no need for electronic surveillance. If I monitor anyone in my schools or colleges, I must give them the right to monitor me the same way,’’ she says.

Pune-based child counsellor and psychologist Niloufer Ibrahim agrees, ‘‘If ostensibly it’s all for curbing bullying and malpractices in schools, be sure that children are smart enough to find a way around even these techniques. In the West such infringement of privacy would be unthinkable.’’

But in Nagpur, students seem to have accepted this as yet another rule they need to follow. Happy Gill, a Class IX student, says she is all for the discipline the practice brings. If any of them feel otherwise, they refused to say so on record. A Class IX student of Bangalore’s Vidya Niketan says, ‘‘We cannot afford to be ourselves even in our free time. We sometimes manage to point the camera away from us.’’

Alarmingly, most students claim to have overcome their initial discomfort and are getting used to the surveillance systems. Neeta Umbalgaonkar, mother of 15-year-old Akshay studying at Nagpur’s RS Mundlay High School, says she feels secure that her son is being watched all the time. ‘‘Most kids are out of parents’ control. At least this way the school can infuse discipline into them,’’ she says.

All of which simply adds to Bajaj’s conviction that the cameras do not curb the spontaneity of the children in any way. ‘‘The city’s teachers’ council objected to it and a question was raised even in the Vidhan Sabha. But when the city’s education officer visited the school, he put all objections to rest,’’ states Bajaj, impervious to all the criticism. Incidentally, Bajaj had Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh officially inaugurate the security system in 2000, thereby putting the government’s stamp of approval on it.

But Bajaj’s next schedule of plans moves one step further. The principal is shoring plans to construct a boys’ hostel armed to the teeth with surveillance equipment. That, at least, definitely deserves a double-take.

(With inputs from Johnson TA/Bangalore, Raghav Ohri/Chandigarh and Pallavi Singh/Mumbai)