Victimising children at school is a reflection of our feudalistic mentality to discourage education, particularly that of girl students. To understand the psycho-dynamics of why children are subjected to this torturous treatment in institutions that are supposed to safeguard and ensure their future, an analogy must be created with misogyny as the reason behind why women are discouraged to proceed with economic and material progress. Children have always been discouraged from pursuing their dreams and the need for this is quite simple to understand in the lower tier of income households: to make use of them as helpers in earning money without considering future investment in them as bright scholars. And those parents who want to break the socially assigned roles to their children bear the brunt of having to witness their children being tortured physically and mentally.In a country where education is considered the prerogative of the elite, it is in the schools of the poor where no attention is given to students’ well being. Corporal punishment and sexual abuse are commonplace at these schools. Another way to look at it is the assertiveness of authoritative figures over the submissive ones. Helplessness is decreed by the fact that children remain mum about the experiences they have been exposed to for fear of shame and guilt in their communities. Even if they disclose their ordeal, parents mainly play a pivotal role in keeping it all hushed up.Sahil, a well-known NGO working towards the rights of the child, cites an increase in child abuse cases by almost seven percent as compared to last year’s registered cases. However, for a school going child, it is double jeopardy. Though there are no authentic figures available of child abuse taking place at school, Sahil reports about 43 registered cases of abuse at schools/colleges in the year 2013. During my work for education in Punjab, I noticed many cases of child sexual abuse, apart from corporal punishment, where the victims fell prey to their teachers and, in some cases, to principals. What was gorier was that despite the strong evidence, the culprits were let go by the courts and the evidence hampered. These culprits would easily resume their work as school service providers. If monsters are allowed to educate children, what sort of scholars will they create? One wonders.The abuse of students comes in many shapes and forms, be it physical or mental. In cases of armed conflict and territorial claims, the first institution to be targeted is the school. It may be noteworthy here that the Taliban were notorious for bombing schools, with or without students reading in their classes. Last year’s attack on the Army Public School’s (APS’s) students reminds one of the horrific realities we are all facing: the uncertainty and insecurity of the students who get caught in the war between the militants and the armed forces. Let us not forget the attack on the International Islamic University in Islamabad in 2009. In 2012, the attack on a young student and education rights activist, Malala Yousafzai, is also significant. This appears to be an organised attempt to stall education either to avenge the killings of their militants by the armed forces or to make use of the students in their armed conflicts by turning them into militants. Even in international terrorist activities, Boko Haram has been abducting girl students in Nigeria and al Shabaab has been targeting educational institutions in Kenya. Their aim is to instil a sense of fear in the hearts of students. Anything linked to development and progress is dealt with in the same manner. This is our shameful reality: children being barred, discouraged and stopped from attaining education, despite the fact that the government of Pakistan is working towards making education a right for all. However, even with the passage of the 18th Amendment, not much has been done to make it approachable and accessible, thanks to mismanaged policymaking and a lack of proper machinery to make it possible. Furthermore, the designing of educational material and the curriculum itself does not regard the diversity of the students. For example, non-Muslim students feel discouraged from pursuing education as they do not find dignity in the academic discourses being meted out to them. How education is imparted is also a matter worth pondering. No progressive and modern sciences are taught nor are students encouraged to learn more about them as chapters the clergy finds inappropriate or in contradiction to Islamic teachings are skipped and omitted and are replaced by religious texts and history that have a negative impact on children at an impressionable learning stage. For example, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the chapter on Helen Keller has been removed and a chapter on Qazi Hussain has been incorporated in the Social Studies textbook. The problem with such political and religious indoctrination in textbooks is that it damages innocent minds with ideologies that can be dangerous for society in future, as actions like these often produce a backlash. Moreover, the inculcation of such ideologies also stalls the mental development and the talent that needs to be polished with refined and objective education gets rusted away. We make mere robots with degrees that fail to question and proceed with inquiry.A multi-faceted approach needs to be furnished to protect the institution of education for children. The government should allocate more than just the required minimum percentage of GDP (at present, it averages around a mere two percent). Needs should be realistically identified and more should be spent on security in schools. Liberal and progressive discourses should be disseminated academically. Unless this is done, the future of our children appears to remain bleak and in a shambles. The writer is a freelance columnist and may be contacted at zeeba.hashmi@gmail.com