Editorial»
Hard lesson
APR 25 -
Given, some private schools are short-changing parents through hefty fees. The pay and perks of most private school teachers are poor as compared to their counterparts in government schools. To cut costs, some schools ferry children in buses packed like sardines. These unjust practices should rightly be condemned and the operators of concerned schools brought to book. But as condemnable as these practices are, they cannot be used as pretexts to jeopardise the studies of young students. Acts of vandalism and violence at educational institutions denies students the right to study in a safe environment. Apparently, the Maoist-affiliated All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union Revolutionary (ANNISU-R) is little bothered about such ethical niceties.
Protesting against the hike in fees along the lines proposed by the government, ANNISU-R has announced a nationwide strike of private schools beginning Sunday. ANNISU-R had forced shut accounts sections of private schools for a week. On Sunday, school owners decided to close the schools fearing for the safety of students after ANNISU-R activists carried out various violent activities in the days leading up to the strike. On Friday, they torched over half a dozen school buses across the country. Another 60 schools were reportedly vandalised. On Sunday, properties of a Lamahi, Dang-based school were destroyed, purportedly for defying the strike.
The use of violence at educational establishments is unacceptable. Wanton acts of violence and closures are likely to breed disillusionment among young students as their studies are disrupted for no fault of their own. Each day of closure equates to many lost hours of valuable education, a loss which might never be compensated. The use of physical violence on school properties can also send the wrong signal to young minds.
ANNISU-R using force to shut down private schools, some believe, is their way of emptying the schools for the Maoist ‘show of force’ on May 1. The Maoists apparently want to lodge their cadres in these schools in the lead up to the big day. Otherwise, ANNISU-R has little moral authority to speak on behalf of ‘poor parents’. It has been accused, time and again, of extracting heavy donations from private school operators to let them run their institutions as they please.
Whatever their motives, the protestors must find peaceful avenues to voice their displeasure. There can be no justification whatsoever for playing with the future of over 1.5 million students studying in 8,000 private schools across the country. (It would also be instructive to know how many of the ‘poor parents’ are in favour of the current round of strikes.) Indeed, activities that disrupt the studies of young students are in no one’s interest. Certainly not the schools’ or the students’. Nor is it in the interest of any political organisation, which can gain legitimacy only by appealing to people’s better senses, not by being seen as standing in the way of a progressive, well-educated society.
Posted on: 2010-04-26 07:15
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