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Headmistress in Tamil Nadu sorts students based on caste

By, Hindustan Times, Chennai
Nov 04, 2021 06:05 AM IST

Since schools reopened on November 1 in Tamil Nadu, children have been grouped in different batches to come in for in-person classes, keeping in mind social distancing norms.

The Chennai administration transferred a government primary school headmistress and served her with a show-cause notice after she allegedly sorted children of Class IV based on their caste and not by alphabetical order as is the norm, people familiar with the matter said.

Other teachers at the school have been warned against following such a practice.(Reuters file photo. Representative image)
Other teachers at the school have been warned against following such a practice.(Reuters file photo. Representative image)

Since schools reopened on November 1 in Tamil Nadu, children have been grouped in different batches to come in for in-person classes, keeping in mind social distancing norms. The headmistress, who is also the class teacher for Standard IV, was shifted to another middle school run by the Greater Chennai Municipal Corporation while it awaits a formal response from her.

“She should have received the notice yesterday (Tuesday). The procedure is to give her seven days to explain what had happened and why it had happened,” said a civic official of the education department who IS in charge of the case.

The corporation has not received any complaints from parents on this issue. “But we acted after the school education commissioner received a complaint after the school register began circulating on WhatsApp,” the officer quoted above said on condition of anonymity. “From our enquiries so far with the school, we are given to understand that the teachers maintained a list of the students’ castes so that they could avail of government schemes meant for the marginalised school students.”

Other teachers at the school have been warned against following such a practice.

Confirming the same, deputy commissioner for education of the Greater Chennai Corporation, D Sneha, said that from a preliminary inquiry, it seemed inadvertent on the part of the teacher, but it is true that students were separated based on their castes into three categories. The class register, a copy of which is with HT, shows the names of students of class four assorted by the terms Scheduled Castes (SC), Backward Class (BC) and Most Backward Class (MBC).

“Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the teacher has named the communities of the children and they have been numbered as per their community and split into three batches,” said Sneha. Each batch was a group of students belonging to the same community. “We are looking at whether this was caste-based segregation,” said Sneha.

The state government has not reacted to the issue. However, caste pride and discrimination inside classrooms have been commonplace in the state. In 2019, it was found that in rural Tamil Nadu several schools used coloured wristbands for students to identify them by their caste. Following this, the director of school education had instructed officials to identify and act against such schools.

“Marriage and elections have kept caste alive,” said social and political activist Senthil Arumugam. “Both the DMK and AIADMK use anti-caste rhetoric, but it is not being practised in spirit. They field candidates based on the caste composition of the constituencies. So, this is a small incident that has happened because serious steps haven’t been taken to eradicate caste.”

Arumugam said that alphabets or random numbers should have been used to rotate students in class. “Now the school has induced in the minds of children that things function by caste, and they will be separated by caste. The purpose of education is to move away from caste. It’s shocking that this has happened in a state like Tamil Nadu where Periyar (EV Ramasamy, known as the father of the Dravidian movement) was known for social justice.”

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