Pvt school gets caught in row over students lifting bricks

Ludhiana: Tagore Model School in Pritam Nagar got embroiled in a controversy, as school authorities had made their students lift bricks from one construction site to another during the school hours here on Saturday. The incident was recorded by a passer-by on his mobile phone, and within no time, it got circulated on social networking sites, evoking a strong reaction against the school authorities.
The passer-by who made the video told The Times of India: “I was passing through the locality where this school is situated, and noticed that the school staff were making children in school uniform lift bricks from one construction site to another. It left me shocked. After seeing this, I took up the matter with the school authorities, who did not respond. Before the school authorities stopped this task, I had already made a video of the children working, and circulated it on a social networking site.”

He added: “However, within seconds of this video going in circulation, school authorities stopped the work being done by the students, and asked them to go back to their classes. The incident makes a mockery of the education department’s tall clams of tightening the noose on private schools violating norms of the state education department.”

A school employee said: “The school staff did not follow norms, and made a mistake by making students do labour work. The higher authorities are soon expected to take appropriate measures against the teachers responsible.” District education officer Swarnjeet Kaur said: “The education department will initiate an inquiry on the issue. If something happens against norms, then the department will definitely charge the school authorities and teach them a lesson.”

Chiranjee Lal, a member of the school management committee, said: “The matter is being looked into by the school authorities. We have initiated an internal inquiry to know the circumstances behind this incident, and the staff responsible for it. After inquiry, the school authorities will take every possible action to make sure such incidents do not happen again in the school premises.”