PANJIM: Canacona has the highest dropout rate among school children but a school is refusing to take a 10 year old child who wants to learn, a NGO alleged, charging school authorities with discrimination.
Taking on the PTA and school management and its allegations against a child with mild intellectual disability, NGO Bailacho Saad, championing the cause of the 10 year old girl struggling to be readmitted into a Canacona school and carry on with her, rudely interrupted, school life, the NGO vowed to “fight till the end” to ensure that justice was done to her.
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“If the school and PTA are allowed to get away with this, it will set a bad precedent,” Saad’s Dr Sabina Martins told media Monday, arguing that 26 per cent of all children have slight disability.
Accusing the school of “teaching wrong values to their children,” Dr Martins tore into the accusations of the PTA and management that the child was violent saying, that an incident where the child retaliated after a boy hit her with an umbrella was twisted out of proportion.
“We are asking girls to stand up for themselves given the present scenario. Did you want her to keep quiet?” Dr Martins questioned. She also asked which child does not move around while responding to allegations that the child used to move around and that was the reason to keep her out.
“A child with (minor) disabilities should not be penalized because adults have failed in their duties,” she said, adding that in case teachers do not know how to cope with kids they have to be trained and in the time being a special education teacher can be brought if needed. She said that they had consulted experts who said that the child had to be admitted into the mainstream educational system.
On the PTA’s opposition, Dr Martins said that “PTA cannot take opinions that are contrary to the law” and “It looks as if the school is ignorant or is practicing discrimination.”
“Punitive action has to be taken against those who practice discrimination,” Martins said taking strong objections to the statements made about the girl child, by other parents and management.
