The Amaravathi Nagar police on Wednesday arrested and removed 44 parents who attempted to observe fast in front of Sainik School, Amaravathinagar, criticising the school decision asking parents of 28 students to obtain transfer certificate for the said students not performing well in Standard XI.
Poor
performance
“Why the school which gives admission to the students at two levels, one in Standard VI and another at Standard IX, through a highly competitive All India level tests can simply force the parents to take away their students citing poor performance in academics?
Competitive
exams
“Instead of abstaining from the responsibilities for students not performing well at Class XI, the school should answer why 28 out of the 78 brilliant students in Class XI who entered the institution clearing the competitive examination become poor in studies,” quipped S. Eswaran, president of Parents Association of Sainik School, Amaravathinagar (PASAM), who led the agitation.
The agitating parents attributed the poor performance of the 28 students to sub-quality teaching.
‘School followed guidelines’
When contacted, school principal Group Captain T. N. Sridhar told The Hindu that the school had only followed the guidelines in the rule book approved by the Sainik School Society under the Union Ministry of Defence with regard to the issuance of transfer certificates.
“The rule stipulates that those who did not score 40 per cent in Standard XI examination cannot pursue further in the school. The said rule is there for many decades and parents of the students have been told about this not only at the time of admission but only been appraised of the same periodically,” he clarified.
On poor performance of children at later stages, Group Captain Sridhar said that the children, who enter at the Standard VI stage, evolves over a period with their interests in certain topics also changing with the time.
“Since the school have only science stream, probably the students who might have developed aptitude for other topics can perform weaker in science subjects. However, it should also be noted that 50 out of the 78 students have scored the qualifying 40 per cent marks which itself is good achievement,” he added.
