A government school teacher in Madhya Pradesh's Betul district got drunk in front of his students and, behind the closed doors of a classroom, ordered girls as young as seven to dance for him — and the caned them for "not dancing properly". All on Republic Day.

The man had sent a class V student to fetch liquor from a shop half-a-mile away. He was put under suspension only after the authorities of the tribal-dominated district investigated the complaint of the victims' parents and found them to be true. It was also found that the teacher had faced charges of rape at a previous posting.

The sorriest bit in this sordid tale is that there is no way of preventing it. The government has no mechanism to protect children, a special group of vulnerables, in the confines of the school. The Betul incident shows that not only are the teachers not vetted, serious complaints are ignored as well. While some may deem it stray, one would contend that there is really no way to know. In the absence of monitoring, it could be that many other scarring incidents go unreported. At schools, children are left in the care of the teaching and non-teaching staff. One predatory individual could, therefore, undermine the morale of a whole bunch of kids. Thus, the safety of students, especially girls, becomes paramount for any drive to improve literacy. But sadly, successive governments have failed to design their education policies accordingly.

A little bit of extrapolation presents an even grimmer picture. The problem of the lack of a screening mechanism for government school teachers extends beyond the safety of children. It has a damning impact on the quality of education as well. Consider the case of Bihar. It has been looking to shed the ignominy of being India's least-literate state for quite some time. So, the present government hired over one lakh teachers in the last five years and is looking to hire one lakh more. In the course, it has improved its enrolment figures. However, the number of teachers who passed a national eligibility test conducted by the union HRD ministry was shockingly low. Under the right to education act 2010, teachers were given three years to demonstrate their competency for the job. There was talk of training teachers according to a curriculum designed by Indira Gandhi national open university (Ignou). Two years after the act was implemented, Ignou is yet to come up with the curriculum.

Given schools and teachers like these, the strides in enrolment are, ironically, a cause for concern rather than cheer.