West Bengal forms authority to hear complaints of students, parents

KOLKATA - The West Bengal government Friday decided to form an authority where students and their parents can express their grievances about schools and teachers, in the wake of the allegations of mental and physical torture of a child by a reputed school here.

A police complaint has been filed against the principal and four teachers of the La Martiniere for Boys after an eighth standard student hanged himself Feb 12.

Rouvanjit Rawla’s parents alleged that he was driven to take his life following repeated humiliation and torture by the principal and four teachers.

The allegation came less than a month after the arrest of a teacher of the same school for allegedly demanding a laptop from a student to promote him to a higher class and then failing the child as his parents refused to meet his demand.

The two incidents have sparked a big controversy with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) conducting a probe and expressing dissatisfaction about the environment in the school.

Spurred into action, state Education Minister Partha Dey Friday said the authority would be an umbrella organisation and its jurisdiction would cover all schools of each board in the state.

Fifty percent of the members of the authority will be women and it will be chaired by the minister himself.

Teachers, academicians and social workers will be included in the panel which will hear complaints against schools and have the power to derecognise an institution.

Meanwhile, after maintaining silence since the Rouvanjit controvery broke out, the school said in a statement that it “deeply and sincerely” regretted the loss of a boy’s life but did not “think it appropriate to join issue in the public arena”.

The statement signed by the school’s board of governors secretary Supriyo Dhar said: “It is also important for the school to ensure that there is an environment conducive to learning and often corrective measures have to be taken to ensure that the environment is not vitiated in the interest of the larger student community of the school.

“The current attack against the school has damaged the confidence of the teachers and the students who are totally innocent and are being unnecessarily drawn into unseemly public scrutiny,” the statement added.