Hindustan Times 01.12.2010
BMC issues show-cause notice to Chembur schoolweek after Our Lady of Perpetual Succour (OLPS) School in Chembur detained 150 students because their parents had not paid their fees, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has sent the school a show-cause notice asking for an explanation. Deputy municipal commissioner of the education department, Arvind Hire, said the civic body has asked OLPS School to reply in 21 days. The BMC will exercise its right to derecognise the school if the reply is not found satisfactory, he said.
The law says it is necessary to get the BMC’s permission for running the state board’s primary sections in any aided, partly aided or unaided school. OLPS is an unaided school.
If recognition is withdrawn, the school will have to discontinue its primary section.
Corporators from all parties, in the education committee meeting on Tuesday, said such incidents should not be tolerated. They demanded that the BMC cancel the school’s recognition without even giving it a chance to reply.
At least 150 students from the primary section of OLPS School were detained all day in a classroom next to the principal’s office on November 24 because their parents had not paid the school fees. The incident invoked sharp reactions from the students’ parents, who stormed the school and brought to notice that most of the students had paid their fees. It was later found that the school’s accounts department had made an error.
Shiv Sena corporator Raja Chougule, who raised the issue in the meeting, said the school made students pay for the mistakes of its administration. “The school administration had recently revoked the promotion of a head mistress for not issuing a memo to a peon,” Chougule said. “It also held back her salary for three months. The BMC should take strict action against the school.”
He added that the BMC has issued notices to two other schools for other violations.
