Nearly 100 students of Sacred Heart Girls High School, Church Park, are left staring at a crisis half way into the academic year after their families were relocated from the banks of the Cooum to Perumbakkam, nearly 23 km away.
Leslie is very worried about her young daughter. Ever since her family had to move to tenements in Perumbakkam, she has been trying to get her relatives or friends in the city to take in her daughter at least until the half-yearly exams are over. “I took my daughter to school today. From Perumbakkam, we travelled to the school in the city for more than three hours. She is exhausted. How will she study for the exams,” asked Leslie, whose daughter is a Class 7 student at a Tamil medium school.
Leslie’s family is among the thousands relocated from Makkes Garden, Rangoon Street and Thideer Nagar, Greams Road to the Slum Clearance Board tenements in Perumbakkam by the Greater Chennai Corporation as part of the Cooum River Eco-Restoration Project earlier this week.
Parents complain that most of their children are struggling to keep up. “My daughter missed three days because of the shifting. Now, there is no direct bus from there,” said Gurubaran.
Teachers too are concerned about the eviction and are afraid that the distance might deter families from sending their wards to school. “Since the relocation, many of the girls have not been attending classes regularly. Only the ones waiting for the house allotment come to school, but their continuance too is uncertain,” said a teacher from the school on condition of anonymity.
Many parents are keen to send their children to the school, but they want the management to arrange for a direct bus to the tenements. “We have written to the authorities concerned on this matter. We want them to continue studying here also because a sudden shift to a new school might be difficult,” the teacher added.
Vanessa Peter, policy researcher, Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities, said the eviction has especially hit all students of Classes VI-XII, and those preparing for board exam. The organisation has also submitted a petition to the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (TNSCPCR) seeking help in the matter. Officials from TNSCPCR have sought intervention from the officials concerned.
