School threatens students with TCS, claim parents

We are trying to increase our enrolment, so why will we turn students away? Sometime teachers may tell parents things like issuing a TC to ensure they make the student attend school regularly

RP GUPTA, director of education, NDMC

NEWDELHI: A second grader at the New Delhi Municipal Council’s (NDMC) co-ed secondary school in Sarojini Nagar was issued a transfer certificate in January for allegedly not maintaining personal hygiene; a claim refuted by the council.

The student was readmitted on Thursday after a few social workers intervened. HT is not naming the children or their relatives to protect their identity.

“I am still worried. What if they throw him out again. They had said he stinks, is unclean and

(doesn’t brush his teeth). Later they started saying he is violent and hits other students. How violent can an eight-year-old be?” asked his grandmother, a street vendor at Sarojini Nagar Market.

NDMC officials said the child was asked to leave because he hit other students.

“...we can’t think of a government school asking students to leave because of such frivolous reasons. Around 90% of our students come from slums... The student had become violent after his father’s death (in November). We only ask students to leave if they prove to be a safety concern for other students,” said RP Gupta, director of education, NDMC. Gupta said the student had been readmitted and given “another chance” on Thursday.

But Sunita Rai, a social worker and a management committee member of a neighbouring Delhi government school, claimed six other students had been threatened with TCS, or not been allowed to enter the premises.

Another vendor said her 11-year-old son had not been allowed to enter the school last year, though he has not been issued a TC yet. “The teacher had asked me, ‘have you seen his eyes? He looks like a ‘nashedi,’” she said.

Gupta said student not coming to school had discontinued of their own accord, or were habitually irregular. “We are trying to increase our enrolment, so why will we turn students away? Sometime teachers may tell parents things like issuing a TC to ensure they make the student attend school regularly,” he said.

Rai and others have mailed a complaint to the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), listing the allegations. They said the school had forged a TC application “signed” by the first student’s mother. “It should be noted that the child’s family is that of street hawkers, who are not literate enough to sign a TC, let alone writing one,” reads the complaint.

Ramesh Negi, chairperson of DCPCR, said he had not seen the email yet. The standard procedure was to issue notices to the principal and director of education, and action, if needed, would be initiated after enquiry, Negi said.