Students in C’nagar boycott classes seeking change of school name

Shrinivasa.M
Mysuru: Students of a government lower primary school in Hanur block in Chamarajanagar district, who were boycotting classes for a week demanding that name of the school be changed, withdrew the protest on Thursday after the education department officials changed the name of the school on the board outside the institution.
The incident was reported from Arabagere Hosadoddi village located 100 km away from Chamarajanagar district headquarters and 25km from the taluk centre Hanur.
The students have agreed to attend classes from Friday. The school has a total of 11 students studying in between Classes 1 and 5, and two teachers.
Meanwhile, the villagers have called a meeting on Friday to decide the future course of action over changing the school name in education and revenue department records.
According to the locals, the school was shifted from Mysurappana Doddi to Arabagere Hosadoddi some 30 years ago citing poor enrolment. The distance between Mysurappana Doddi and Arabagere Hosadoddi is 2.5km. Although the school was relocated, the name continued as the Mysurappana Doddi school. As the efforts of the villagers didn’t yield any results, the students boycotted the classes from June 2.
N Krishnamurthy, former president of the GP and chairman of the local forest committee confirmed that the school was relocated some 30 years ago. “No children from Mysurappana Doddi were attending classes in this school. The revenue documents are very clear that this school is in Arabagere Hosadoddi village. Still the officials didn’t change the name of the school,” he said.
“It is a question of identity and that is why we want to change the name,” he said.
Chamarajanagar DDPI SN Manjunath informed that the students started attending classes on Thursday after a meeting with the block education officer.