CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu School Education department has instructed all Chief Education Officers to identify and take action on schools that make students wear wristbands of various colours to identify their castes. The directive has been issued on complaints that the students are being discriminated on basis of caste.
In a recent circular, based on a representation by a batch of 180 trainee IAS officers, the Director of School Education has said, “All the Chief Educational Officers are requested to take appropriate steps to identify such schools in their district, where such kind of discrimination is practised.” It instructed them to issue suitable instructions to the headmasters and prevent such practice immediately. The circular stated that severe action will be taken against persons responsible for such discrimination and added that the regional officials should submit a report on action taken by them in this matter.
The issue came to light last year when a few physical education instructors and senior district-level officials had allegedly discriminated between students, from participating in a sports event. The student’s caste was identified based on the colour of the wristbands they were allegedly made to wear. In some schools, this band was also used to discriminate children from using common plates to eat the mid-day meals.
A representation lodged by the trainee IAS officers stated that some schools in Tamil Nadu, made students wear colour coded wristbands as caste markers.