MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday directed the secretary of the school education department to file a report as to whether the 7.5% reservation in medical admission for students from government schools would be extended to aided schools in the absence of government higher secondary schools in a particular area.
A division bench of Justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri was hearing a PIL filed by C Pubesh of Ramanathapuram. The petitioner said there is no government higher secondary school for boys in Ramanathapuram town and the CEO sent him a communication in 2023 stating a proposal was sent to the directorate of school education to upgrade the Ramanathapuram Vallal Pari municipal middle school to a high school. However, he said, there is a need for a higher secondary school.
Earlier, the Ramanathapuram CEO filed a report stating the proposal to upgrade the middle school to high school is pending.
Only after middle school is upgraded to high school, the school could be upgraded to higher secondary school. There is no provision to establish a government higher secondary school directly.
During the previous hearing, the court directed the CEO to file a report on the availability of any government aided higher secondary schools in Ramanathapuram town.
The court noted the proposal for upgrading the middle school to high school has been pending before the school education department for the past three years. Considering the time taken, it would take another 10 to 15 years to upgrade the school to a higher secondary school.
The court took note of the report that there is one fully aided boys higher secondary school, two fully aided co-ed schools and one fully aided girls higher secondary school in town. This apart, there are two partially aided co-ed schools in the town.