School of eminence: School refusing admission to underprivileged, rue parents

Shivani Bhakoo

Ludhiana, April 12

Controversy erupted at the Indrapuri School of Eminence (SOE) today when hundreds of parents of the students, who were ‘denied’ admission, sat on protest outside the school, in Indrapuri area. The parents alleged that the government school (SOE) was preferring private school students over those already studying at the school or the ones coming from underprivileged backgrounds.

Rajinder Kumar, a parent, said when the school was inaugurated, CM Bhagwant Mann had claimed that one could come to the school with the Aadhaar card and get admission. “My child is already studying at the Indrapuri school, but they are not entertaining him for the senior class. In fact, the well-off are allowed to go inside but we, from meagre families, are denied a seat. They had said admission will be given on the basis of a test. In that test, they asked the child about parents’ socio-economic background. What kind of a test is this? It is simply an eyewash as they want to oblige the students coming from private schools to show the public that many students from private schools have joined the government school,” rued the parent.

Another parent, Jagjit from Bihar, argued that when his child had been studying at the same school till date, why was she now being denied admission? “I was asked to put my child in some other school. Why would I take her elsewhere when she is a student of this very school?” he asked.

A lot of resentment prevailed among the parents as they sat on dharna outside the school. It was only after the intervention of the police that the parents lifted their dharna.

Some parents voiced that when no test was mandatory for students from classes VI, VII and VIII, on what basis was the school providing admission?

Jaswinder Singh, principal of the SOE, however, said that these were mere allegations by some parents. “Perhaps these parents did not come turn wise and overreacted on refusal. “We will accommodate both the government school and private school students,” the principal added.

Whiff of discrimination

Former Congress MLA Sanjay Talwar said the school was started by the previous Congress government and that the AAP government kept on dilly dallying when it came to opening it. And now, the school is in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Parents and students were made to suffer as though the online forms were filled by them, their applications were not being entertained. The government’s tall claims of providing quality education to the underprivileged fall flat, the MLA added.