No Maths lessons for Kovai school after complaint against casteist teacher

Class X students of a Government Higher Secondary School in Kaliyannanpudur near Kovilpalyam on the outskirts of Coimbatore have accused the teachers of caste discrimination in class. The students reached out to the district collector TN Hariharan after the headmaster, allegedly, turned a blind eye to the matter.

A Scheduled Caste student of Class X was on sick leave for two days. When he returned, the Mathematics teacher asked for the homework. "As I did not know that we had homework. But, before I could explain it to her, she started scolding me and she named my caste and said that was the reason why I am not fit to be in the school and was fit only to be a herder," said the Class X student on condition of anonymity.

Not being able to withstand the harassment, the student took the issue to the Headmaster K Chinnakannan, however, he did not pay heed. Rather the situation took a turn for the worse as every teacher, allegedly, started heckling the students. With the help of the alumni, they managed to find the Chief Educational Officer's address and collectorate's address — they lodged a complaint against the teachers. But, nothing changed. "Since we have filed the complaint, teachers are not coming to the class properly. The worst part began from August 5, no teacher has come to teach mathematics as the complaint was particularly against the Mathematics teacher," said the student.

As the majority of the students in the class belong to the Scheduled Caste, the incident had also hurt everyone in the class, the student added, "Others also came up with similar complaints about the Mathematics teacher. They said that she had thrown away their notebooks from the first floor. Our parents are daily wage labourers and we survive with just Rs 200 per day. We can't afford to have our notebooks thrown away," another student said.

When asked about this, Chinnakannan denied the claims made by the students and justified that the teacher would scold only for the welfare of the students and explained that the Mathematics teacher was changed after an inquiry conducted by the District Educational Officer.