Govt's knee-jerk reaction puts city DAV students in the soup

Hyderabad: The state government which had failed to react on the incident of sexual assault of a four-year-old girl studying in BSD DAV school in Banjara Hills for past four days has now come up with a new proposal that parents should shift their children to other schools.

The Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy on Friday directed the District Education Officer (DEO) to immediately cancel the recognition of BSD DAV Public School in Banjara Hills. The government did not give a serious thought about where and how 900 students should go. The parents who have been fighting for justice feel that the government has given another major blow to them. It is middle of academic year. Which school will admit their children and what about the fees which the parents have already paid? The parents will now have to run around other schools which may charge higher fees. Moreover what if the neighbouring schools refuse to accommodate them saying they do not have necessary infrastructure or teaching staff.

The parents told Hans India that the government in the first stage did not respond to the incident. After four days it took a decision to cancel the permission of the school without providing an alternative, they rue.

Kareem, a parent of class IV student of DAV Public School, said " How can State government cancel the license in the middle of the year? The education minister or the government does not seem to be bothered about the future of students and the agony of the parents. Which school will admit in the middle of the year? It should have taken direct control of the management of this school at least till the present academic year was over, some parents felt.

Ramesh Rao, another parent of class V student said, " The decision that the government asking parents to shift students to nearby schools is not acceptable. Either the government should take over the administration for the remaining part of the academic year or it should make arrangements to shift students to other schools by transferring the fee amount from DAV school account.

They also regretted that the Minister for IT KTR who is always very active on twitter and responds to issues did not even bother to express his concern over the incident though they had sent messages to him. "For four days, KTR and the government were silent," another parent added.