Protests spill over on to Day II

Parents of students of H B Kapadia School Memnagar continued their protest for the second day on Friday. This followed their angry protests outside the school on Thursday.

Around 500 parents decided to meet up at the school despite having decided not to send their children to school till Monday. The guardians are up in arms over the school authorities’ decision to increase fees by around Rs 2,000 for primary and secondary sections.

On Friday, parents gathered outside the school and demanded that the trustee of the school, Muktak Kapadia, meet them. They said the trustee should meet them in the morning and not at 11 am on a working day as all of them had to report for work.

“When we protested, no response came from the school authorities. This irked us and so we decided to take up the matter with the district primary education officer (DPEO), M M Jani,” said Haresh Patel, one of the parents.

“We are very positive and will remain positive. I strongly believe that such disputes should not affect the academic schedule of the students. Also, I can tell you that the video footage of the first protest is being closely watched. It shows around 40 goon-like people were hired to do mischief at the school. I am sure that parents of HB Kapadia students cannot behave in such a manner,” said Muktak Kapadia, the school trustee.

When the representatives of the parents met Jani, he asked them to send their children to school from Saturday. “In a bid to decide what should be done, we have decided to meet late on Friday night. The DPEO also gave us a circular of rules of fee hike and said he would speak to the trustee to reduce fees,” said another parent Bijal Patel.