CHENNAI: Prasanth V is not happy with his marks. The Class XII student, who was resettled to Perumbakkam Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) apartments from Otteri, has secured 395 out of 600 marks in the Biology-Maths group.
This, while studying in a school which does not have even toilets for boys. “Here at Semmenchery, the toilet for boys remains locked. We have to use the toilets in our classmates’ house close by,” he said.
When he was resettled with his family in May last year, portions for Standard XII had already begun in his earlier school. A month later, he enrolled at the Government Higher Secondary school at Semmenchery after his family started their lives from scratch at Perumbakkam. “The Ayanavaram school was good, but the distance was too much for me to continue there,” he says. His mother Venkatammal, agrees.
“He has always been a good student. He scored 454 out of 500 in his Standard X board exams when he studied in the Ayanavaram school,” said Venkatammal.
Prasanth’s father, Veera, is a painter. The boy wants to pursue a career in civil service once he completes his under-graduation.
In the same block of Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board apartments, lives M Kalpana, another 17-year-old, who, if she had continued to go to school, would have found her board exam results on Friday.
“We first sought admission in Semmenchery Government school, but I did not get it because I was from the pure science group which this school did not offer,” she said. “For a month after resettlement, I continued to go to my school at Ayanavaram. The distance and traffic was so much that my parents asked me to drop out.”
It has been ten months now that Kalpana stopped going to school. “How can we let a girl of her age reach home at 10 pm?,” asks her mother. She would start for school at 6 am. After special classes till 6 pm, she would reach home at 10 pm, she said. Kalpana’s father Muthu works as a security guard and her mother is a housewife.