With reference to “Guidelines for Elimination of Corporal Punishment” (GECP), which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. The Tamil Nadu School Education Department issued these guidelines o

Question

With reference to “Guidelines for Elimination of Corporal Punishment” (GECP), which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. The Tamil Nadu School Education Department issued these guidelines on 26th April, 2024.
2. These guidelines are focussed on safeguarding the physical and mental well-being of students.
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 identifies the issuing authority correctly: the Guidelines for Elimination of Corporal Punishment were issued by the SCHOOL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF TAMIL NADU — a State government order, not a central instrument — and they were issued in the last week of April 2024, which is the window the question's date falls in. One honest note on that date, because a student deserves it: our own sourcing places the issue of the guidelines in late April 2024 and fixes the Madras High Court's direction to the State to implement the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights' guidelines at 23 April 2024, but we could not independently pin the precise day to the 26th. The commission accepts the 26 April date and marks statement 1 correct, so treat 'Tamil Nadu School Education Department, late April 2024' as the examinable fact and do not stake anything on the exact calendar day. Statement 2 is correct without qualification: the stated purpose of the GECP is to protect students from physical punishment, mental harassment and discrimination, and so to safeguard their physical and mental well-being. The guidelines require every school to constitute a monitoring committee — typically drawing in the head of the institution, teachers, parents and senior students — to receive complaints and act on them, which is the machinery through which that purpose is meant to be delivered. Both statements standing, the answer is (d).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This concedes the purpose but rejects the attribution, and the attribution is right. The GECP is a Tamil Nadu School Education Department instrument issued in late April 2024; it is not a central government circular, and it is not the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights' own guidelines, although the State order was issued to give effect to those. A candidate who assumes that anything about school discipline must come from Delhi lands here.  (b) Both statements are in fact accepted, so 'neither' fails twice over. It is the reflex option for a candidate who has never heard of the GECP at all. Statement 2 in particular is close to self-evident from the title — a set of guidelines for eliminating corporal punishment is by definition about students' physical and mental well-being — so 'neither' should have been eliminated before any recall was attempted.  (c) This accepts the issuing department and date but denies the purpose, which cannot be right. The GECP exists to end physical punishment, mental harassment and discrimination in schools and to put a school-level monitoring mechanism behind that aim — its focus on the physical and mental well-being of students is the whole point of the document, not an incidental claim.

Concept: Corporal punishment in Indian schools is already prohibited by central law, and State orders like Tamil Nadu's GECP are enforcement instruments layered on top of that prohibition. Section 17 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 bars physical punishment and mental harassment of any child and makes contravention a ground for disciplinary action under the relevant service rules. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 separately penalises cruelty to a child by a person having charge of the child and corporal punishment by anyone in charge of or employed in a child care institution. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, set up under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, has issued its own guidelines for eliminating corporal punishment in schools. What was missing in practice was implementation at the school level, and that is the gap a State order with a named monitoring committee is meant to close.

State PCS 2024 Q89 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q89 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer