Udgam episode: Schools seek cop security in Gujarat

Everything was certainly not right about the Right to Education admission this year. One thing among several major concerns is the safety of the schoolchildren. Concerned about the safety of students, especially after two incidents in which two prominent politicians entered the school campuses, the Association of Progressive Schools (AoPS) wrote a letter to the Commissioner of Police (CP) on Thursday.

The schools wrote to the cops after the two recent incidents in which Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel and Congress MLA Alpesh Thakor visited Udgam School for Children and St Kabir school, raising queries about rights of students who were to be admitted under RTE Act.

"We have written to the commissioner, seeking protection for the students and the schools. The cases are pending in the Gujarat High Court. We need to be extra careful with the safety of our children if large groups enter the school premises," Archit Bhatt, committee member, AoPS said.

"We did receive a representation from the AoPS sharing two instances where Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor had barged into the schools. In one of the incidents, the association mentioned that the police had come for rescue but did not do much. I disagree as we did detain both Hardik and Alpesh. Another incident was also of the similar nature," AK Singh, Commissioner of Police said. "We will not jeopardize the safety of the children. While we have our intelligence in place, we would also appreciate if someone reaches out to us to inform about any such incident in schools. We are open to register a case against people who take law in their hands," Singh said.

"When Hardik Patel and group came to our school, the students were not affected. However, the parents panicked after they learnt about it. We received enquiries regarding the safety of the children and all our lanes outside school premises were blo-cked," president of AoPS said.

Edu minister, school mgmt meet

State education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama on Thursday convened a meeting with the Federation of Self-Financed schools to formulate a scheme, as directed by the Supreme court, concerning the Gujarat Self-Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act.

The federation suggested implementing the Uttar Pradesh ordinance of 2018 in which existing fees are accepted and the self-financed schools are given the autonomy to fix their fees for all new admissions without any regulatory oversee. In the meeting, discussions related to the hike in fees for the betterment of schools were also talked about.