Following a viral video of a boy’s father being allegedly attacked by a government school headmaster, Coimbatore Chief Educational Officer R. Murugan on Thursday asked the student to join another government school.
The video shows the headmaster of Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Ondipudur allegedly hitting a parent on the school premises. According to the parent, the incident occurred on July 3 when he asked for an admission for his son in Class X at the school.
The student had attended Class IX for four months in a Government Higher Secondary School at Kannampalayam in 2018, where the teachers allegedly did not evaluate his notebooks. Though the student stopped going to school then, the parent alleged that the transfer certificate mentioned that his son dropped out of Class X instead of Class IX.
Hence, when he sought admission for his son at the Ondipudur school for Class IX under English medium, the headmaster refused to admit the boy, the father claimed.
“We have recommended the school in Edayarpalayam to admit the student in Class X,” Mr. Murugan said. The parent had also agreed to this proposal. Regarding action against the headmaster, the CEO said that it will be taken after conducting investigation.
However, the parent told The Hindu that he would agree to put his son in the Edayarpalayam school only if English medium education is provided.
R. Geetha, District Educational Officer of S.S. Kulam educational district, said that the transfer certificate mentioned that the student passed Class IX, which was personally approved by her. “As this issue involved higher secondary schools, I referred this matter to the CEO,” she said.
When contacted, the headmaster of Ondipudur school claimed that the transfer certificate indicates that the student dropped out of Class X as he has passed Class IX. “How could we go in reverse?” he asked, pointing to the father’s demand of a Class IX admission. The headmaster claimed that he was attempting to only take the camera away from the father during the incident, further accusing the father of attempting to implicate him falsely.
The CEO issued a show-cause notice to the headmaster of the Ondipudur school on Thursday, education sources said.
