Days after a group of Dalit residents from Pulavarpalayam near here stopped sending their children to school to protest the fact that the local panchayat school was located far away from their village, which forced the children to travel a risky route to reach the school, the authorities have finally woken up to their plight.
On Wednesday, officials of the education department swung into action and established a make-shift school in Pulavarpalayam Village itself. “As per the orders of the District Collector, a spacious building that housed an anganwadi was converted into a make-shift school in Pulavarpalayam,” District Elementary Educational Officer (DEEO) A Arulmozhidevi told Express.
The parents and teachers were consulted before doing so, the DEEO said, adding that all the students attended class on Wednesday. The Dalit residents of Pulavarpalayam stopped sending their children to the Panchayat Union Primary School, Thattankuttai, since Friday.
According to parents, the children had to travel through expansive agricultural lands, that posed many risks, to reach the school. And, on June 4, after their children were chased away by some miscreants while on their way to school, they were forced to take another route that was even more circuitous, they claimed.