MARGAO: An attempt by a secondary school in Margao to suspend a lab assistant against whom there are charges of sexual harassment of students, is being blocked by the Education department.
With the Education department’s delay in authorising the suspension, the lab assistant is now demanding his salary from the school for the period of suspension. Sources say that the Education department is being influenced to protect the lab assistant.
The school had moved the Education department for approval of suspension of the accused as soon as a police case had been filed for charges of sexual harassment of students. The Education department took two months to process the request of suspension due to the Zilla Panchayat elections. However, even after the school submitted the required documents of the police action, a month has passed and the department hasn’t fulfilled the demand of the school management to suspend the accused.
“Action taken on time could have been a strong deterrent to any such acts in other schools in the State. But all is not well now,” said a senior management member of the school.
The school’s headmistress and the management said that counselling of students helped identify the cases and stressed for full time counsellors for all schools.
The incident dates back to January 2015 when the incidents of sexual harassment of students came to light with the help of the school’s student counsellor. Hesitant in the beginning, the students spoke up one after another of incidents of sexual harassment inflicted by the lab assistant. As normal course of action, the school immediately filed a police complaint and suspended the lab assistant. He spent eight days in jail.
Sources said that the alleged accused is a member of an international educational and social organisation and is exerting pressure on to the authorities. The management is angry and worried over the slow processing of the Education department as they have now been overburdened with the responsibility of paying salaries to the suspended lab assistant.
