January 13, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 22, 1427

NEW DELHI, Jan 12: Male teachers are being prevented from teaching girls in primary schools across New Delhi after a handful of complaints of sexual molestation, a local authority said on Friday. “It's a matter of being precautious,” Indira Yadav, the director of education at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), told Reuters.

“I can't say we mistrust all male teachers. But we've had three or four complaints in the last two years ... and it is matter of minimising that.”

Within the next three months, male teachers will be replaced -- wherever possible -- with female teachers in Delhi's roughly 1,200 MCD-run co-education and all-girl primary schools, which teach children up to the age of 11.

While the Indian capital has a reputation for being the country's most dangerous city for women and girls, critics say the move to segregate teaching staff is extreme and unnecessary.

“This is nothing but a slur on the male faculty,” Ram Kumar Paliwal, a local teachers’ association secretary, told the Statesman newspaper.

“Instead of teaching the students what is right and what is not, the department is giving a wrong message that male teachers are responsible for all sexual harassment.”

The Teachers Welfare Organisation told the Statesman newspaper it would protest against the move as it would result in male teachers losing jobs and girl students being needlessly mollycoddled.

Mr Yadav admits the move will not entirely eliminate the risk of children being sexually assaulted. “Of course these days it is possible for a male teacher to fondle a boy — but what can I do about that?” she said.-

—Reuters