The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Mambalam school closure puts parents in a fix

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 07, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Mambalam school closure puts parents in a fix

Meera Srinivasan

Management comes up with temporary arrangements to accommodate students

— Photo: Meera Srinivasan

For a way ahead: C. L. Mehta Matriculation Higher Secondary School Principal L. Raghavan (centre) in discussion with parents at a meeting in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: For the parents of nearly 500 students studying in C.L. Mehta Matriculation Higher Secondary School, these are testing times.

The school has been closed since Wednesday, following a Madras High Court Order. The order followed a civil dispute over ownership of the land in West Mambalam, where the school is located.

With uncertainty prevailing over the functioning of the school, they raised several questions to the management committee members and school heads at a meeting organised at B.S.Mootha Senior Secondary School here on Friday.

C.L. Mehta Matriculation Higher Secondary School principal L. Raghavan briefed parents on the temporary arrangement that would be in place from Wednesday. The school management has decided to accommodate the 500-odd students in B.S.Mootha Senior Secondary School near Doraiswamy Subway for about a fortnight, by which time they expect to make available necessary provisions for all the students elsewhere.

The timings for kindergarten students will be as earlier. Classes for students in grades one to four will be held between 8.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m., he said. For students of classes five to 12, classes will be held between 1.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m.

Management committee members said the final verdict on the case, which they expected to be favourable, would be out in 15 to 20 days.

Should the verdict be otherwise, they were prepared to admit students of this school to B.S.Mootha Senior Secondary School and Shri Sumathi Vishal Jain Girls Higher Secondary School (which offers classes eleven and twelve alone), located nearby. These are also run by the Rajasthani Samaj Educational Trust running C.L. Mehta Matriculation Higher Secondary School.

However, parents felt insecure and bombarded the school authorities with questions. In the event of a verdict against the school management, even if students were to be admitted to these two schools as promised, how would students of C.L.Mehta School, which follows the Matriculation syllabus, cope in B.S.Mootha School that is affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education?

Secondly, both, B.S.Mootha and Sumathi Vishal Schools are all-girls schools. C.L.Mehta functioned as a co-educational institution. What will the plight of boys going to this school be? “We will try our best to find a solution in the next few days. We are prepared to rent or acquire a building for their sake, till the case is over,” a management committee member said.

Director of Matriculation Schools D.Jagannathan said they were closely following the developments, and would step in if necessary.

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