Norms wreck single mom’s tryst with twins’ school admission

Vadodara: Her joy at getting her twin sons’ admission in a private school in the city through the Right to Education (RTE) Act was cut short when Sneh Gupta, a single mother, was asked to fill a column that required their father’s name or face cancellation.
“I have raised my sons alone without anyone’s support. Every document of my children has only my name as a parent,” said Gupta after she was apprised about the ‘norm’ in the district education office (DEO) on Wednesday. “Why should I be forced to give their father’s name? He doesn’t stay with us and has no role in bringing up my children,” Gupta, mother of two six-year-old boys, said.
Gupta had walked out of her marriage in 2013 and soon after came in contact with a friend of hers. They got into a relationship and in October 2014, she got pregnant. However, that ended their relationship as the friend refused to take responsibility if she delivered the babies. Gupta decided to abandon him rather than her unborn twins.
“I ended the relationship and chose to be a mother. Since 2015, I have been playing the role of both father and mother for my kids. I am going to single-handedly raise them and give them proper education and so, I won’t add their biological father’s name in any document,” Gupta told TOI.
District Education Office (DEO) officials said that she has to furnish some document about the children’s father or her divorce. “They said that they can’t go ahead with the admission procedure if I don’t submit these documents or they may cancel their admission. With my income sources almost drying up in the last one-and-half years, and I hardly earn enough to manage our daily expenses ” Gupta, who earlier used to do consultancy, said.
Education inspector Shivangi Shastri, however, explained that they have earlier witnessed such cases of single mothers where the child’s father later turns up and questions the school for giving admission to his kid without his knowledge. “It puts us and the school in trouble,” she said.
“We haven’t declined admission to Gupta’s children but asked her to submit her divorce papers or prepare a deed declaring that she is the sole responsible parent for her kids. We need some declaration or document so that we can admit them under the category concerned,” Shastri added.
Gupta, however, said that the school too has asked her to submit her divorce papers.