A video clip depicting a terrified, crying student has gone viral on social media recently. The scene is of a class, or may be many classes, being conducted in the open in a rural area. The child is six, or seven years old; his teacher is not seen in the clip, but his voice is clear and audible. He is telling his student that he is going to hang him upside down from a tree with a rope tied to his foot.
The student is standing in front of the teacher, crying, wailing and begging for mercy. Other students sitting or standing in the background appear to be enjoying the situation, some laughing and some carrying out acts ordered by the teacher to avoid his wrath, apparently.
The anchorperson in the Geo News programme “Nya Pakistan, Talat Hussain Ke Saath” showed the clip recently, and disclosed that the recording was done with a cell-phone, most probably in a school in the suburbs of Kasur, a month or so back.
Here’s word-for-word transcription of the two minutes and 50 second clip (English translation), which may help partially provide an answer to the vital question: “What are reasons for very high dropout rate among school children?”

Teacher: Today, I’ll hang you upside down…
Student: No, Ustad Ji (teacher) please… Ustad Ji, No, please…
Teacher: You will be hanged upside with your feet tied with a rope…
Student (crying and wailing): Don’t do it Ustad Ji, please…
Teacher: Hey Aamir, come here…
Student: Ustad Ji please don’t do it, please…
Teacher: Hey Amir, stand up, bring a rope from the room.
(A boy stands up from among other students and moves towards a room at some distance)
Student (crying even more loudly): Ustad Ji please, Ustad Ji, please…
Teacher: Don’t cry, shut your mouth.
Student: Ustad Ji, forgive me please…
Teacher: What should I do then?
Student: Ustad Ji beat me up (but don’t hang me)…
Teacher: How you should be beaten?
Student: Ustad Ji, make me a “murga” (a denigratory position).
Teacher: hmmmm.
Student: Beat me up after making me a murga… with a pipe, with a rod…
Teacher: But why shouldn’t you be hanged upside down?
Student: Ustad Ji, make me a murga (as punishment)…
Teacher: No, no.
Student: Ustad Ji, make me a murga… Ustad Ji, make me a murga…
Teacher: No, today you will be hanged upside down only, and nothing else…
Student (crying loudly and begging): Ustad Ji, make me a murga… Ustad Ji, make me a murga…
(Meanwhile, Aamir returns with a rope in his hands).
Student (looking at that boy and crying): Ustad Ji, I will bring you 20 rupees… (Clasping his hands together, begging for mercy), Ustad Ji, I will bring you 20 rupees…
Teacher: You are offering me a bribe… you didn’t bring even an egg for me… How will you bring me 20 rupees?
Student (weeping and pleading). Ustad Ji, I will bring 20 rupees… I’ll bring 20 rupees…
Teacher: No, no… (You won’t bring it, I know).
(Some students move towards the child apparently to catch him and tie the rope to his foot. The child starts crying more loudly, more bitterly).
Teacher (directing some students holding a rope): Hey, you hang the rope on that tree…
Student (crying and stopping a student, who’s trying to catch hold of his leg to tie a rope with it): Jana, don’t do it… Jana don’t… Jana…
Teacher (directing the student holding the rope): Hey, stop it and hang the rope to that tree…
Student (seeing students hanging the rope by a tree, starts crying more loudly) Ajju, hay Ajju… (Calling another student sitting on a bench, may be a relative or a friend, for help)…
Teacher: What are you telling Ajju?
Student (bitterly and loudly crying): Ajju save me, they are hanging a rope…
(Voices of some students enjoying the situation and laughing at the child are audible and the child is continuously calling Ajju for help. He tries to leave his place, moving towards other students).
Teacher (angrily): Hey, where are you going… come back…
Student: Ustad Ji, please, Ustad Ji, please…
Teacher: Why didn’t you bring me an egg?
Student: Ustad Ji, forgive me only for once… I’ll obey you always…
Teacher: No, you just deserve this treatment, my son…
Student (continuously weeping and crying): Ustad Ji, forgive me… Ustad Ji, forgive me…
Teacher: Why you crying? Did I beat you?
(Some students again move towards the crying boy apparently to take him to the tree where the rope is hanging).
Teacher (looking at those students): Stop… leave him alone.
Teacher (looking at the crying student): Hey, you come here, close to me…
(The student is holding the hand of Ajju and crying bitterly).
Teacher: Come here, what are you telling Ajju? (He can’t do anything to help you).
Teacher (in a ferocious voice): Hey, come to me… listen to me…
Another student pushes the crying child towards the teacher.
Student: Ustad Ji, please don’t beat me, please don’t beat me. Ustad Ji, I will bring you an egg…
Teacher: I know you won’t bring it…
Student: Ustad Ji, I’ll bring… I’ll bring an egg…

Watching the clip was mental torture, especially transcribing the dialogue between apparently a psychopath teacher and an innocent wailing student, was a test of nerves. But it was necessary to bring to light some realities once again, though the authorities concerned and a large number of people with a rural background are fully aware of it.
The teacher is apparently making fun of the child only for his perverse enjoyment but the way he is terrifying the child is very cruel. Anyone watching the clip would agree that sooner or later that child would flee his school, or may be his home as well, if his parents would have forced him to go to school.
The dialogue also depicts a culture prevalent in village schools, and even in those in small cities and towns of Pakistan. Seeing his teacher considering a harsher punishment, the child himself offers that he should be made a “murga” as a punishment. This is a common punishment in Pakistan and other countries in the Subcontinent. “Murga” means rooster in Urdu. The punished person takes a position resembling that of a rooster, by squatting and then looping his arms behind the knees and firmly holding his ears. Having to hold the ears makes it especially painful. It can become extremely painful after one minute.

Finding his teacher not satisfied with the degree of punishment, he asks him to beat him with a pipe, or with a rod, after making him a murga, but not to hang him upside down. The child also offers 20 rupees, and lastly an egg to escape the punishment. The child is a minor and his offers to the teacher show that he must have seen all this going on as a normal practice in his school. The teacher also demands the student bring an egg for him, many a time.
The clip partially provides for reasons behind very high dropout rate in schools, and children running away from their homes.
The Alif Ailaan education initiative latest data show that of all the children enrolled in primary school in Pakistan, 69% are retained until class 5 and only 28% until class 10. The report released in the beginning of 2016 says that enrolment and retention vary by province. Balochistan and FATA’s retention rates until class 5 are the lowest at 34% and 32%, respectively, while Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Islamabad have the highest rates at 93% and 92% respectively, with a national overall of 69%.
According to the report, enrolment drops drastically after the primary level, but more steeply for girls than boys. Boys continue to outnumber girls at every stage of education. Nearly 10 million boys and 8.1 million girls are enrolled at the primary level; this drops to 1.9 million boys and 1.4 million girls at the higher level, and just one million boys and 700,000 girls at the higher secondary level. One of the main reasons for this high dropout rate is corporal punishment in schools, though a law in this regard is pending passage in the parliament for years. The Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill 2013, the Punjab Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill and Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill at the federal level are in the pipeline for years now. The bill at the federal level, the Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill 2013 was passed by the then National Assembly of Pakistan on its last day in Session on March 12, 2013; however, the bill has lapsed as per Article 76 (3) of the Constitution of Pakistan; it wasn’t passed by the Senate of Pakistan before the dissolution of the National Assembly.

Another incident making headlines in the national media recently is of paralyzing of a student in a Sindh cadet college due to alleged torture by his teacher. Such incidents, and hundreds of thousands others that go unreported daily, need governments’ immediate attention for passage of laws in this regard. It would not only save our innocent children from physical and mental torture, but also help increase the retention rate in schools.