Dear friend
Greetings!
Shakila, a labourer, who hails from a jhuggi cluster; works in a factory to raise her two children. Her husband lives in another state and does not provide any financial support for the upbringing of the children.
In the beginning of this year when volunteers of Pardarshita initiated mobilizing people for admission under EWS quota, she also realized that despite of her low status in the society her children can avail better quality of education. After being aware of this information, she had approached 5 schools (Daya nand Model School, Arwachin Bharti Bhawan, New Oxford Public school, Siddhartha International School, Vivekanand Public school) where she was insulted by the gatekeepers and was not allowed to enter the school for the admission forms.
She had filed a complaint against these schools with the office of Deputy Director of Education (DDE) but no action was taken for a long period of three months. But suddenly in the month of April her child got admission in three public schools (New Oxford Public school, Daya nand Model School and Vivekanand Public school) and some officials from Education Department (East District) had visited her and requested her to withdraw her complaint.
This had not only happened with Shakila, but this had happened with more than 100 parents who were seeking admissions of their wards in public schools under this quota and were denied by the school authorities. The officials who used to sit in their air conditioned offices and hardly bothered to take any action against the complaints now have come out of their air conditioned rooms and started visiting the complainants. Moreover the principals from the schools which had taken money for forms under this scheme have visited the slum and returned their money.
Further it has been noticed that many big schools like DAV have offered bribe to the parents who have filed complaint against their schools and requested the parents kindly withdraw their complaint, but the parents refused to take a single penny.
This has become possible because during the admission process around 1000 parents called up on pardarshita helpline and discussed about their problems which they were facing in admission process. They were assisted by Pardarshita in filing the written complaints with director and deputy director of education. When all these complaints brought under the notice of Hon’ble High court and thereafter the proactive decision given by Hon’ble High Court against these defaulted schools by issuing notice for contempt of Court. Further the high Court has stated on 3rd April 2008 before issuing contempt notice to defaulted schools, it is required to take strict action against some officials of education department.
With Warm Regards,
Ritu Mehra
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