Erode: Students made to clean loo, HM held

The sources said that there are two toilets in the school, one of which is used by the teachers, while the other one is used by the students.

Representational Image. (File | EPS)

ERODE: Police arrested the headmaster of a government primary school in Erode for allegedly making the students clean the toilets from Perundurai on Saturday. She was earlier placed under suspension by the school education department.

According to sources, over 40 students study in the school in Erode and J Geetharani (53) from Teachers Colony in Perundurai in Erode was the headmaster of the school and she used to make the students clean the toilets of the school. The sources said that there are two toilets in the school, one of which is used by the teachers, while the other one is used by the students.

A victim’s mother filed a complaint at Perundurai Police Station on November 30 alleging that her 10-year-old son, who studies in the school, was forced to clean the toilets. She said, “I work as an agricultural labourer and am staying separately from my husband. My son got a fever and was admitted to the IRT Government Medical College Hospital in Perudurai on November 21 and when I asked him how he got the fever, he revealed that he had cleaned the toilet of the school.

He further revealed he and the other students regularly clean the toilets. After my son was discharged from the hospital on November 27, I went to the school and found out after enquiry that the headmaster forced the students belonging to Scheduled Caste to clean the toilets. Action should be taken against her for this.”Two days ago, a video went viral regarding this complaint, following which Geetharani has suspended after an inquiry by District Education (Elementary Education) officials on Friday.

S Moorthy, Coordinator of the Federation of Educational Development, said, “The responsibility of cleaning toilets in schools should be given to the respective local administrations and not to school headmasters. Also, only `1,000 is allotted by the school education department per month for cleaning toilets in primary schools and `1,500 is allotted to middle schools and hence, workers don’t come to clean the toilets. The amount should be raised else modern technical facilities for cleaning toilets should be provided for schools.”

Officials from the school education department in Erode said, “We have ordered the local bodies to clean the toilets in schools and funds are directly paid to local bodies by the department. But in Panchayat schools, the funds for cleaning are allotted to headmasters and now, they have been told to do this in collaboration with the local administration.”