A missionary school in Guwahati has allegedly expelled a 7-year-old girl student for being a “slow” learner and failing to secure better grades in her class.
The father of the girl has sought a written apology from the authorities of Holy Child School, which called him for further discussion toward readmitting his daughter.
The incident came to light weeks after the school reportedly violated the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, and child rights activist Miguel Das Queah posted about it on Facebook.
Mr. Queah, who is the executive director of NGO Utsah, said the school expelled the girl for “being too slow in studies”.
Section 16 of the Act states, “No child admitted in the school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education.”
School Principal Lissy Rose said the child was not expelled and the authorities had only mentioned its possibility to her parents.
“We usually updated the parents about how a child is performing academically. The parents, in this case, got upset and went to file a case. We are ready to take the child back and have called her father for a meeting,” she said.
The father, unwilling to put his child back in the school, said he took up the matter with the Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights in March besides approaching Utsah.
“The school authorities failed to turn up for a hearing by the commission on three occasions. They also did not respond when the commission asked the school to readmit my daughter. It was only after the Facebook post that they stirred,” he said.
He also accused the school authorities of having behaved rudely with him.