Awareness of Child Rights and Protection Among The Primary School Teachers

Cases related to child abuse and exploitations of child rights are major public concerns nowadays. Despite having plenty of implementation for the welfare of children in India the condition of children is still worse. The school is a major social institution responsible for socializing the child and teachers are in unique position to safeguard children due to their daily contact with children. The study was initiated to identify the awareness level of teachers regarding Child Rights and Protection in Ludhiana district of Punjab. Total 120 teachers from primary section of schools were selected as a sample of the study. A self-structured 'Child Rights and Protection' Checklist was used to collect the requisite data. Analysis of results revealed that majority of teachers were quite aware about the basic child rights as per the Indian Constitution but the awareness regarding UNCRC (1989); POCSO Act (2012); and JJ Act (2015) was found to be very poor among teachers. Further, the locale-wise differences among teachers regarding basic child rights revealed that urban teachers were significantly better aware than rural teachers but, no significant differences were observed with regards to (UNCRC, 1989) as well as the (JJ Act, 2015). However, contrasting to the other finding of this study it was found that rural teachers were significantly more knowledgeable than their urban counterparts regarding some of the provisions under the (POCSO Act, 2012). The correlation analysis of awareness level of teachers with their socio-personal characteristics revealed a statistically non-significant relationship between the variables.