kids strike in Kerala for their right to study

Posted : August 06 2009

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The students of St. Thomas Lower Primary School situated in Nadavayal in the hill district of Wyanad, Kerala, managed by the Catholic Church and aided by the State Government on 23rd July were on the streets shouting slogans and throwing up their little fists into the air.

They demanded that the school should be reopened and the classes held in a responsible manner. It was a unique strike organised by the parents with the little ones for the reopening of a lower primary school in Kerala.

Students from LKG to the fourth standard laid siege to the local Village Office and left the place only after being assured that the classes would resume the next day itself.

The classes had been suspended after the government had turned the school as a tribal relief camp following the torrential rains last week in the state. The strike held the media attention as the tiny tots displaying placards and shouting slogans took out the march from the school to the village office.

Students’ strikes are common in Kerala with violence and refusal to attend classes. The little ones had no trouble with that. Their classes were suspended for about 15 days now as the school had been converted to relief camp.

They demanded that the government should shift the relief camp to else where in the region, and their classes resumed. Their protest met with an instant success as the revenue officials reached the spot wasting no time. The officials assured them that the camp would be shifted to a vacant building in the Cooperative Department and the school will be made available for classes.

The students and their parents had become restless even after the rains stopped and there was no sign of resumption of classes. 500 little ones and their parents were on the streets to find a solution for the situation.

The tribal families around 100 were made homeless by the rains in Naikuppa colony nearby. The district administration soon turned the school into a relief camp and as soon as the rains stooped the revenue authorities had asked them to vacate the school building and the tribals turned to the forest land. The authorities could not afford them to set up even the temporary shelters in the forest land because they fear another Chengara incident. The encroachers in Chengara had refused to leave they encroached and the State government was already in trouble with the strikes there. In Chengara, hundreds of tribal families have been staying for nearly two years after encroaching on a private plantation.

Hence the forest officials drove the tribals here back to the school. And the school management could do nothing about it since the tribals had nowhere to go.

The parents then decided to do something to draw the attention of the government and they asked the tiny tots to come out onto the streets. A local social activist Mr. Jose Sebastian says that the shifting has already begun and the classes would be resumed soon.

According to him last year and the year before the school had to shut down during the monsoon for the same reason and the authorities had resorted ad hoc measures instead of a permanent solution.

He says, “Officials normally would not think in terms of a permanent solution because, as the wag said, everybody loves a famine or a drought because that’s when politicians, officials and contractors go for the overkill.”

The revenue officials in a meeting later on the day gave a written undertaking to the parents that they would set up permanent housing for the tribals in the colony once the monsoons are over.

Thus the tiny tots’ efforts paid off and many of them would cherish the day for their first ever strike in their lives.

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kids strike in Kerala for their right to study

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