Daily Times

Teaching is known to be one of the noble professions. For which, the credit goes to the teachers who ensure that it remains one.

Every religion has entrusted and uplifted teachers as dignitaries of the society. Such a status of teachers has been earned through ownership, respect, neutrality, thirst for knowledge and wisdom delivery, grooming and motivation of students. Prophet Muhammad (SWA) said, and I quote, “Teachers who have three students of social classes and do not treat them equally, will be in the line of the traitors on the Resurrection Day.”

Once, Hazrat Ali (RA) said, “If a person teaches me one single word, he has made me his servant for a lifetime.”

This shows how Islam has ensured the equality of students, the neutrality of a teacher and respect in return. The role of teachers has always been vital in developing a sane and just society with prosperity and wellbeing. It would not be wrong to claim that teachers are architects of society. A teacher’s main responsibility is to shape a student’s reputation, honour, integrity and knowledge. If a society behaves unjust, undue, immoral, disrespectful and dishonest or gets involved in malpractices, it indicates either no education has been delivered, the ignorance level is higher than the level of teaching or teachers themselves are involved in the similar practices. The last statement mentioned earlier is the worst of all, as teachers are role models. As a student, I never distrusted teachers and did not believe in misconceptions and rumours. Today, when I am a teacher and look at those rumours and find some truth about them. Last week, I read painful news about a female student and later listened to her interview. She attempted suicide as she was being harassed by her teachers in a reputed medical university of Sindh. This news has, however, not been streamed in the mainstream media. Recently, a Hindu medical student, who was studying in the final year, was found dead under mysterious conditions in the hostel of a medical university, where she had been studying.

Last year in Lahore, a student of visual arts at a private university reportedly committed suicide after jumping from the fourth floor of a building. Last year, another medical student was found dead in the room of a private hostel. Earlier this year, a female student accused her teacher of sexual harassment in a university in Sargodha, Punjab. Two years back in Haripur, a university student accused a former coordinator of the university of not only sexually assaulting girls including herself but also of making videos of the incident and was now blackmailing them to extort money. Last year, a schoolteacher was arrested for attempting to rape a nine-year-old girl in Gujjar Khan area of Punjab. Last year, a university student in Nawabshah accused her teacher of harassing her. The list goes on for such reported and unreported cases. And very interestingly and unfortunately at the same time, the administration of institutions backed their faculty most of the times.

A teacher’s main responsibility is to shape a student’s reputation, honour, integrity and knowledge

I, too, was a disbeliever of such accusations until I came across some cases recently. One of my female friends, who is a foreign qualified PhD from a reputed university, got stuck in a harassment situation. On the completion of PhD, she returned to Pakistan and joined a medical university. The head of the department, who had recommended her for the job, was her former teacher in a university in the Metropolis Karachi. The head of the department started maltreating her by the second week of her joining. She kept silent and tried to make him understand she was a mature girl and she could not do anything such. On the refusal, he started blackmailing her. He was of the view that she was not teaching well, and students were becoming against her and if she made him happy, he will settle down the students. But she totally refused him.

At the end of the third week, he tried forcing himself on her. Seeing which, she left the campus and went home with a heavy heart. On the next working day, in the start of the fourth week, when she went to the university, the head of the department called an urgent meeting of faculty and asked her to return office keys and leave the university as he was terminating her over her lack of performance. It is worth to note it was a government, not a private university. In the evening, she called me and narrated the whole story. She was of the view that she should leave this job and find any other university. However, I intervened. With the help of some friends in some offices, we asked her to continue and assured her that he would neither harass nor blackmail her again.

This was a horrendous case of women harassment, which I witnessed myself. There are several such unrevealed cases around us, and we, intentionally or unintentionally, leave them the way they are. Very unfortunately, some of our teachers have turned from angels to devils, and this is erupting very quickly. On the other hand, parents and society have made it a taboo to speak about harassment and maltreatment. We are not making our daughters and sisters so strong, so they should communicate wrongdoings of their teachers or heads to us instead of suicides. Rather, we stop them from continuing their professional education and jobs, which lead them to stay silent and bear the pain of depression and anxiety. More importantly, institutional administration and government also do not play their due role. Let me quote you such an example. One of the professors, who was accused of harassment, was made the Vice-Chancellor of a university in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2017. He still serves as the Vice-Chancellor before the decision of the case.

I know it is difficult and sensitive to write on the harassment in educational institutions, especially when you are a teacher. Matter of the fact is someone has to, if not me then who else? Let’s speak for our daughters and sisters. Let’s break this taboo.

The writer is an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering and Director for Postgraduate Studies at Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi