Government school ‘forces’ student to choose Sanskrit over English

A Class XI student in arts stream at Jahangirpuri Government Girls Secondary School, she wants to get a job to augment her family’s income. At present, her father is the sole breadwinner by running a small teashop. HT reports.

A Class XI student in arts stream at Jahangirpuri Government Girls Secondary School, she wants to get a job to augment her family’s income.

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At present, her father is the sole breadwinner by running a small teashop.

Seema Sirohi (name changed), however, claims that her school is coming in the way of realising her wish.

Sirohi, who has an elder sister and a brother, wanted to choose English as a subject. But, a teacher told her that she could only opt for Sanskrit.

“My teacher told me that because of my grades I cannot take English. I have been forced to take Sanskrit. But I need to know English to pursue further studies in college.”

Sirohi scored a D in class X. She said that her classmates who have got better grades such as A, B and C have been offered English.

But that should not prevent the school from offering English to the student, argued Ashok Aggarwal, an advisor with Social Jurist.

According to him, this is just another way of ensuring that government school's results remain intact.

He said that if they offer English, most students who study in Hindi medium might not pass it.

Fearing that their pass percentage may go down, the government school force students to take Sanskrit.

He also added that this was one of the several complaints he had received from students of various government schools.

However, principals argued it is the school's prerogative to allocate a stream and subjects to a student through a criteria decided by them.

“There has to be a criteria for allocating stream and subjects, based on marks or grades. Schools cannot grant a subject to a student just because they want to study it.

Aptitude and grades also need to be taken into account,” said a principal of a public school.

Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, too, said that schools have the autonomy to decide on allocation of subjects to students.

“How can everyone be granted the same subject? Based on performance, the school has to decide who should be given which subject.”