After Monday’s school boycott by Caste Hindu parents over the admission of two dalit students in the Panchayat Union Middle School (PUMS), over 110 students returned to classes on Tuesday.
Vijay Pingale, District Collector, said: “The school has started functioning normally on Tuesday. A total of 117 students out of 136 attended the school.”
The admission of Sathish (11) and his brother Muthuraj (6), belonging to the SC community, to Classes VI and I respectively in the PUMS had previously created a hostile atmosphere.
While most of the parents stopped sending their wards to the school, a group of 50 parents gheraoed the school protesting the admission of the SC students.
Revenue Divisional Officer of Tiruvannamalai, A Bhoopathy, and Tahsildar, Ravichandran, held talks with the protesting parents and it yielded a positive response with the school registering 85 per cent attendance.
“We hope that the school attendance will touch 95 per cent in the coming days,” said the headmaster.
The boys’ father, Kumar, a coolie, preferred the Panchayat Union Middle School over the Adi Dravidar Middle School as the former had better teaching facilities.