Azaan school response stumps SSED officials

​Hyderabad: Shocked with the response from the school management for its notice the State School Education Department (SSED) top bosses and the Hyderabad District Administration (HDA) officials are training their guns against the Azaan International School (AIS), Tolichowki.

It may be mentioned here that a four-year-old school girl at AIS had been molested by a supervisor on the school premises. The city police had swung into action and took the accused into custody and District School Education Department (DSED) were asked to submit a report by the top bosses in the SSED. Following these developments, the school management had held a press meet on Tuesday and condemned the incident and vowed to extend cooperation with the investigating agencies for suitable punishment to the accused in the incident. Besides, the school correspondent Nayyar Faroza had also expressed concern for the victim and announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh. Besides, she had expressed the willingness of assisting the victim by bearing the expenses of treatment and for her future education.

But, according to sources in the SSED, "this was all for public consumption”, and the response of the school for the preliminary notice to the department officials shows a different face of it," said an official. Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official from the SSED on the condition of anonymity said this was the worst ever response the department had ever got from any school management in the known past.

The arrogance and carelessness with which the school management had sent its reply left "our blood boiling”, he said. Giving further details about the response of the school management, the sources said, it had not only washed away its responsibility and accountability but also, said, "Such things happen in schools".

Not enough, the school management had counter-questioned the department in its reply, whether there are two kinds of rules in Telangana: One for the government schools and another for the private schools? The disgraceful response from the AIS to the notice asked the SSED, that it cannot disaffiliate or close down its school when it was not applying a similar rule in case of the government schools, the official said. Taking into consideration all this the department will be issuing a final notice as per the procedure asking it why the school cannot be shut down as it was running it without prior approval as well as the department not satisfied with its response to the incident.

Taking serious note of the incident and the response of the school, top officials in the SSED had decided to make a briefing to the State Education Minister Kadiyam Srihari and Special Chief Secretary Education Rajeev R Acharya about the disgraceful mindset if allowed to continue would threaten the safety of children. When contacted the Commissioner and Director School Education T Vijay Kumar said that the inquiry report is yet to be received from the DSED. Once the report is received suitable action would be taken against the school, he said.