5 months after sending them out because they were HIV+, a govt-aided primary school near Kottayam in Kerala has finally allowed 5 children back into the school.
Parents of other students and teachers had urged school authorities not to allow them
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Five months after sending them out because they were HIV positive, a government-aided primary school near Kottayam in Kerala has finally allowed five children back into the school - under pressure from the government, the Opposition party and AIDS activists.
The five children - four girls and a boy, aged between five and eleven years - were ousted from the Mar Dionysius Primary School at Pampady on December 1 after objections from parents of other children. They were then being given private tuition at the orphanage for HIV+ children, where they live, and were to be allowed to take the annual examination at the school.
Director of Public Instruction has instructed the school authorities to accommodate the children from this academic year. The government had offered to protect the teachers’ jobs if parents of other students pulled out their wards from the school.
The government got tough after a round of awareness campaign led by social welfare minister PK Sreemathi, education minister MA Baby and Opposition Leader and local legislator Oommen Chandy failed to convince the disgruntled parent-teacher association of the school. AIDS Control Society activists, engaged in an awareness campaign in the area, had vowed to take the positive students back to school.
The students returned to the school on Monday but were disappointed when they were told to leave because their teachers thought it was not safe for the immuno-deficient children to mingle with their classmates, many of whom are down with fever.
Head teacher Elsamma Mani denied that they were sent back again in the face of unrelenting opposition from the parents of their classmates “There’s no objection to the children coming to school. We sent them back today because many of the students were down with fever. There are chances that these five students might get infected,” Mani said. “The children can come back as and when the fever subsides. Classes have not started in full swing.”
The Asha Kiran Trust that runs the orphanage confirmed that the children would go to school in a day or two.
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