With exams approaching, students made to do labour work at Ludhiana school

Students of Government Senior Secondary School (School of Eminence) for Boys at Jawahar Nagar here have been asked by the authorities to move bags of sand to a construction site on the premises instead of attending classes days before their board exams.

It is the third or fourth day in a row that the students were asked to do this as construction work in the school is on.

A parent, on condition of anonymity, said, “We send our children to study but they are told to work like labourers. If the government has to carry on the work at the school, it should employ labourers.”

A Class-10 student said there is no harm in doing this work for school but with the board exams around the corner they needed to focus on studies. “We have many doubts which need to be cleared,” the student added.

“Our uniforms get dirty while lifting the sandbags but we do what our teachers ask us to,” said the student.

These Schools of Eminence are supposedly providing the best of education to students.

The teachers remained quiet on the issue. When contacted, principal Kuldip Singh said the construction of new toilets was on. When asked about students working as labourers, he denied the allegations. However, when confronted with pictures, he said he would look into the matter.

Despite repeated attempts, DEO (Secondary) Dimple Madan was not available for comment.