Madras High Court has ordered Tamil Nadu government to look into the issues stopping rural children from attending schools after the long COVID pandemic induced gap and difficulties of those parents who had moved back to their native villages in getting the transfer certificate for their children.The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu issued the orders on Friday hearing a petition filed by S Vasuki, Secretary of Thamizhaga Pengal Iyakkam.
Several problems pertaining to children's education after the protracted period of lockdown and closure of schools in the state have been pointed out by the petitioner, the court said."Two of the key areas are the lack of enthusiasm, particularly in the rural areas, both on the part of children and their guardians for such children to go back to school after a lapse of 18 months or so."
The other issue is the difficulties faced by migrant workers and other professionals, who have returned to their original homes after having lost jobs in metro cities to obtain transfer certificates (TC) from government schools in which their children were enrolled. Advocate General R Shanmuga Sundaram sought time for looking into the matter as the court wanted the government to go into whether these were real problems or there were some other problems too. The government has been given ten days time to submit a report and the matter is adjourned on November 24.
The petition filed in June stated that the children studying in government schools and government aided schools are financially not sound hence they aren't able to buy a computer or mobile phone to attend online class. It has created a gap between students of government and private schools.The petitioner had appealed to the court to order the Tamil Nadu government to constitute committees consisting of NGOs and activists at district/taluk/panchayat levels to ensure no children drop out of school. As the schools have opened, she said most of the government school children showed lack of enthusiasm, she stated.
