The Hindu : Students, parents block road demanding compensation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Students, parents block road demanding compensation

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Jan. 20. Scores of students and their parents today took to the street to protest the damage caused to the Cotton Hill Lower Primary School and the Sisuvihar Upper Primary School, which hosted the participants of the National Youth Festival (NYF) held in the city last week.

They blocked the road in front of the school demanding that the Government compensate the damage caused to property. The children who arrived at the schools this morning after a weeklong holiday imposed by the Government were horrified by the stench of rotting garbage and animal wastes dumped in the classrooms. A large number of the desks and benches had broken legs, most of the taps were damaged and the toilets blocked and littered with plastic bottles and waste.

The schools were used to accommodate the students who arrived from all over the country to participate in the Youth Festival. School authorities said many classrooms bore the signs of having been used as kitchens and dining rooms.

"We found the floor littered with chicken waste, egg shells, spilled oil and rotten food. The whole place was reeking so much that the children could not even enter the classrooms,'' she said.

The parents accompanying the children immediately met the school authorities and registered their protest. They then trooped out of the school and blocked the Vazhuthacaud-Edappazhanji road demanding that the Government compensate for the damage and supply fresh furniture.

After several hours of protest, officials from the Education department including the DEO and AEO (South) arrived at the school to take stock of the situation. They returned after assuring the students and parents that necessary action would be taken. The Headmistress-in-charge of the Cotton Hill LPS, Valsala, said the DPI had talked over the phone and promised to compensate for the damage caused to the school property.

"We have been asked to prepare an estimate of the loss'', she said.

However, PTA members feel that the Government should take steps to supply new furniture. They argue that procuring materials by the school would take time. "We cannot afford to disrupt classes as the academic year is drawing to close,'' they say.

Later in the day, the Youth Affairs Department, which had co-hosted the National Youth Festival sent a team of cleaners to remove the garbage and tidy the classrooms and premises.

The increasing use of the premises of government educational institutions in the city to host public programmes has led to protest over the intermittent disruption of classes and the inconvenience caused to students.

The PTA of the Cotton Hill School had raised its voice against the use of the school premises to host the participants in the Youth Festival. The school has played host to a variety of non-academic activities this year including the Corporation's development seminar and the meeting of the World Social Forum against globalisation. The PTA had represented the Government several times to check the use of the school for public functions.

The PTA members said the trend was threatening to upset the academic schedule. "Out of a total of 160 working days, 10 to 20 per cent are lost because of these functions. The school has to be vacated a couple of days before a major programme for the organisers to take over. Once the function is over, it takes days to clean up the mess left behind. The organisers seldom keep their promise to clean up. The Government has been unresponsive to our demand to stop this practice of letting out the school for functions,'' they say.

The PTA points out that the huge amount spent by the city Corporation on modernising the school infrastructure and improving facilities would go waste unless the Government took a decision to check the use of the school for non academic activities.

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