A departmental inquiry has been ordered against the headmaster of a government higher secondary school in Immedianayakanapalli near Shoolagiri, after the school students complained to the District Collector that they were forced to pay up towards the salaries of ad-hoc teachers in their school.
Complaint
The students submitted a petition to C. Kathiravan, District Collector, during the weekly grievances redress day meeting on Monday.
According to their complaint, the headmaster demanded the students studying in Classes 6 to 10 and Plus-One and Plus-Two to bring Rs.500 and Rs.750 respectively.
K. Sundaramoorthy, a father of two high school students, said that Monday was the last day to pay the amount.
“Those children who did not pay were made to kneel down in the playground,” he said. For this construction worker employed in Hosur, the cumulative sum of Rs.1,000 was unaffordable. “At the beginning of the academic year, we paid Rs.350 towards school fee. If we had the money, why would we put our children in government schools,” he said.
After hearing the students, Mr. Kathiravan directed the officials to visit the school and hold an inquiry.
The Hindu spoke to the Chief Education Officer, S.Kalaiarasi, after an inquiry was held in the school.
“We had advised the schools to recruit teachers through PTA (parent-teacher associations) to fill up vacancies. The school had four vacancies - teachers for mathematics, zoology, and Tamil for higher secondary classes. However, such ad- hoc PTA recruitments are to be paid a minimum salary of not more than Rs.3,000. Here, though the recruitments were made through a resolution passed by the PTA, the headmaster had committed to pay Rs.10,000 as salary, which was against the norms,” Ms. Kalaiarasi said.
A departmental inquiry will be initiated against the headmaster, she added.
Following this, the money collected so far was ordered to be returned to the students.
