Minority status under lens

Poor result

Re-transfer of eight primary schools from municipal corporation to UT

In a far cry from the “guru-shishya” (teacherstudent) tradition of India, this year saw violence rear its ugly head on some school campuses in the city, with teachers being targeted by students and their kin.The first incident took place on January 18 when a student hit a female teacher , pushed her to the floor and ran away. Staff and principal said the boy was repeat offender and often misbehaved, producing written apologies by the student after previous occurrences.Six months later on August 9, family members of a Class XI student thrashed a teacher for allegedly beating him. The boy called his mother and uncles and the latter asked the teacher to come out of the classroom, where they thrashed him. The student, his uncle and another Class XII student sustained minor injuries in the clash. The education department got an FIR registered against the boy and his relatives.On November 1, parents and residents of the locality barged into the premises of a government school, vandalized the property and assaulted the teachers. Parents of primary wing students alleged that the teacher had showed them (kids) pornographic content on the pretext of viewing cartoons. However, according to the school teacher and other authorities, the video shown to the primary wing was “Komal”- a film aimed at teaching about good and bad touch. The movie was shared with schools by the ministry of human resource and development for children’s viewing.It later emerged that relatives of a student who was sent to the juvenile home for raping a Class I student in the school’s washroom were part of the mob. An FIR was registered in this case.Teachers are worried by all this. Some teacher organization also sought police deployment in schools located in sensitive areas. Even after such attacks, schools don’t have proper boundary walls or security guards.Aiming to wriggle out of the ambit of the Right to Education Act, 2009, the number of private school in UT claiming minority status has swelled. The spurt was witnessed soon after the SC directions in 2012 ruled that schools having the minority status are not bound to reserve 25% of their seats in entry level classes under RTE Act.The minority status of private schools was challenged in Punjab and Haryana high court. The court has stayed the minority status of St Kabir School in Sector 26 and cancelled that of Vivek High School. The school has appealed against the order.The Class X and Class XII results in government schools of UT Chandigarh were abysmal. As many as six government schools in the city hit rock bottom with a pass percentage between 19 and 30 in the CBSE Class X results. Another school had a pass percentage of 8%. In fact, the performance in government institutes saw a massive drop as compared to last two years. In a first, many heads/principals as well as teachers were issued show-cause notices for the poor results and three teachers were suspended. However, teachers with good results were given appreciation letters.Ending the years long tussle between UT administration and municipal corporation over eight primary schools, UT administrator VP Singh Badnore approved the re-transfer of these schools from MC to the education department. In light of the poor condition of primary schools, MHRD had told the education department to re-transfer the schools this year.