Thursday, June 4, 2020

Suicide of student disheartening: HC


REFERS CASE TO CJI

Suicide of student disheartening: HC

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kochi:04.06.2020

The high court has on Wednesday termed the alleged suicide of a Class IX student belonging to a scheduled caste after she was unable to attend online classes as ‘disheartening’.

Considering a petition challenging collection of school fees despite the lockdown, citing improper online classes through WhatsApp, and lack of action by the state government in controlling the situation, justice CS Dias observed in an interim order: “It is disheartening to learn that a student allegedly took away her life due to lack of access to the Internet for attending virtual classes.”

Stating that right to education is sacrosanct in the Constitution and is the mandate under Right to Education, the court issued a stay on collecting fees from the petitioner and referred the case to the chief justice to be considered as a public interest litigation.

The petition was filed by a student of Sree Budha Central School at Karunagappally. The court has ordered the school not to levy any additional fee from the student until further orders.

The petition claimed that several states and Union territories have formulated guidelines for conducting online classes and have ordered that students should not be denied education for not paying fees during the pandemic period. However, no such guidelines have been issued by the Kerala government, it alleged.

Further, the petition said the online classes being conducted are not virtual or online classes in its real meaning and yet unreasonable fees are being charged under the heads of smart classroom facilities and computer charges. The online class is being conducted at the school by sending voice messages of teachers through WhatsApp to the parents, who are to download them and teach the children who are studying in classes lower sixth standard.

The petitioner is ready to pay the tuition fees on monthly basis if online or virtual classes in its true sense is provided by the school, the petition said while pointing out the lack of guidelines to set standards for conducting online classes.

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