To
Hon’ble
Smt. Smriti Irani
HRD
Minister
Government
of India
Shastri Bhavan New
Delhi-110001
17.12.2014
Sub: Prohibit private
schools from targeting students for recovering school-fee
Madam
Times of India 17.12.2014
has reported a shocking incident from Bareilly, U.P. wherein a school Principal
beat the seven-year-old upper KG student to death over parents’ failure to
deposit the school fee. Not stopping at that he then flung the body on the
highway. The report states, “The Principal of DSR Public School in Rath
(Deorania), Avinash Saraswat thrashed Mohd. Aaraj as his parents had not been
able to pay the Rs.4,500 that was due to the school.”
This is certainly not a
stray incident of a student being tortured by the school for non-payment of
fee, however the above case is marked by its gravity. The practice of targeting
the tender-aged students as means to pressurize the parents to pay fee is quite
commonplace in private schools. Students are often singled out and humiliated
in class, given reminders and warnings through their school-diaries, beaten up,
made to stand outside the class or at the reception or sent back home for
non-payment of fee by their parents.
This pernicious practice
clearly has a grave impact upon the psychology of tender-aged students and
besides affecting their studies, also affects their over-all state of mind and
well-being. It reflects an absolutely anti-child, unethical and insensitive
approach.
School-fee is a matter between
the parents and the school and therefore, the students should not be brought
into picture. In case a school has any grievance regarding fee, it should deal
directly with the parents. The practice of targeting students in this regard by
the schools goes against the ‘best interest of the child’ principle and needs
to be prohibited on an urgent basis.
It is therefore
requested that in the interest of students, guidelines be issued to all the
private schools in the country thereby mandating all the private schools to
deal directly with the parents regarding school fee without targeting the
students in any manner. School’s failure to comply with such guidelines should
entail serious penal consequences.
Yours truly
Ashok
Agarwal
National
President, AIPA
M;
9811101923
No comments:
Post a Comment