Autistic kid ‘denied’ e-registration No., school in soup

Tribune News Service

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, July 16

A private school here has been accused of playing with the future of an autistic student.

In their complaint to the District Education Department, the parents of Hritesh Uppal, who is suffering with autism having mild to moderate symptoms, has alleged due to the negligence of the school to register their ward on the e-Punjab school web portal, their child is now forced to repeat Class IX and they are facing issues in getting him enrolled in another school affiliated to the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB).

Meera Uppal, mother of Hritesh, said she had enrolled his son in the school in 2009. She said at the time of admission in the kindergarten, the school management was informed about Hritesh’s condition, and the staff also assured full cooperation.

“Hritesh passed Class VII with above average percentage and class VIII with grace marks. The school till class VIII never complained about Hritesh being ‘unfit’. In Class IX, the school took an undertaking from us that our son will not appear in Class X from the CBSE, which we signed thinking that he will at least be able to complete his Class IX from the school and later we will enrol him in some other school,” she claimed.

She alleged before Hritesh could complete his Class IX, the school’s attitude towards him changed and teachers turned non-cooperative. Consequently, they stopped sending their child to the school and took his transfer certificate (TC) in December, 2019.

“For autism-affected kids, the change is not easy. It affected his mind and he was diagnosed to be under depression,” Meera Uppal, alleged, adding that it took her two-long years to bring him out of depression and convince him to join school again.

“It was in April this year, when we applied for Hritesh admission in a PSEB school here, we got to know that my son was never registered on e-Punjab portal. Following which, we filed a complaint with the Education Department,” she added.

Meanwhile, refuting all the allegations, one of the managing directors of the private school, said: “The school had always taken care of all the needs of Hritesh. The school authorities had informed his parents in the past many times that he was not able to cope with the syllabus, but his parents always insisted on promoting him to the next class. The school had all the evidence related to the boy’s medical condition, and on the basis of it, he was declared ‘unfit’ to appear for the Class X exams.”

On being questioned about not providing the e-Punjab registration number to the parents, he said they had already submitted their replied to the Education Department.

Parents demand fee refund, Rs 40L relief

Parag Uppal, father of Hritesh, said they had served the school authorities with a legal notice, seeking refund of Rs 9 lakh that they had submitted as fees for his son’s education from KG to Class IX along with a compensation of Rs 40 lakh. “If the school fails to reply to the notice by Monday, we will file a writ in the High Court,” he said.

‘2 notices served, action accordingly’

Deputy DEO, Secondary, Rajiv Joshi, said two notices over the issue had been sent to the school. The last and final notice was issued on July 12, and the school was asked to reply within three days. “On Monday, the DEO office will check if the school has replied or not, accordingly an action would be taken,” he added.

Must to register on e-Punjab portal

As per the notification issued by the Punjab State Education Department in 2016, it is mandatory for all the private, government aided, and government schools to register and update the details of students on the portal every month.

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