Elementary school in Vellore forces students to sweep floors, parents complain

Students of an elementary school in a remote place in Vellore district were forced to clean the classrooms and the floors on Tuesday. Parents flayed that the teachers were regularly forcing the students into doing the chores in the Panchayat Union Elementary School located at Pernambut. Ahead of Pongal events planned to be held in the school with a strength of 213 students, the students were allegedly compelled to do cleaning work on Tuesday, sources said.

When a parent shot a video in his mobile while the children were engaged in cleaning, he was pushed out by the school headmaster. The video footage of the students doing the cleaning work was widely circulated on social media.“The teachers have been forcing our wards to clean the school frequently despite our complaints. On Tuesday also, the students had to do cleaning work,” a parent rued. When asked, school headmaster Pon Valluvan pleaded ignorance of engaging children in the cleaning work.

“Our teachers were cleaning their respective classrooms ahead of the Pongal festival. I am not aware of engaging the children,” he told Express. He did not respond when asked if he would initiate action against those teachers who allegedly forced the children into doing the chores. The HM noted the school had no conservancy worker for doing the chores. Despite repeated representations from 2016, no action was taken to recruit a conservancy worker.

“I have been sending letters to the district collector and chief education officer, yet no action has been taken to post a conservancy worker for our school,” Pon Valluvan said. He claimed that the school had bagged an award for cleanliness last year. The parents noted the HM himself had posted a video showing students trying to plug leakage in a pipe in the school a few months ago. In the purported video, he was heard spurring a student to coil a piece of cloth around the damaged part of the pipe.