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Tribal Girl Students Forced To Clean School Toilets, Principal Suspended

On Sunday the principal of a government school in Tamil Nadu was suspended. This comes after a video went viral on social media. The footage showed three tribal girl students cleaning the toilets and sweeping the school’s surrounding areas. The government school in question is located in Dharampuri’s Palakkodu area.

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The viral video shows 3 female students cleaning toilets at Perungadu O.O.N. government school. The footage sparked outrage as it depicted students in uniforms holding brooms and cleaning toilets on campus.

The incident came to light after the parents of the three tribal students filed a complaint with the school education department. The parents alleged that the headmistress, D Kalavani, forced their children to perform such tasks.

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Following the complaint by the parents, the Chief education officer Jyothi- Chandra ordered an inquiry. An investigation was conducted by the authorities with students and teachers. Following the probe and findings, the allegations were found to be true.

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Chief Education Officer, Jyothichandra said, “In our investigation, we learned that the headmistress had requested students to carry pitchers of water to fill a tank in the restroom. There was no incident of children cleaning toilets. But as it is still wrong to make students do chores within the school premises, we have suspended the headmistress.”

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After the investigation, the DEO issued the suspension order. Subsequently, the headmistress Kalavani was suspended for 3 months. This comes after the parents staged a protest outside the school on Saturday, demanding immediate action against the headmistress.

HW also tried contacting the District Principal Education Officer but the calls went unanswered. Meanwhile, Palakkodu Tahsildar Rajini and police inspector Subramani also carried out separate inquiries into the incident.

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The school education department has assured that strict measures will be taken to prevent such incidents in the future. The step to suspend the principal was to restore trust in the educational system.

The parents of the students complained that the principal had made three fifth-grade students work as toilet cleaners every day. Reports also suggest that over 150 students from tribal communities from classes 1 to 8 study at the school.

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The discovery of the incident comes after the parents voiced their concerns. The parents of the students stated that their children would often return home exhausted from cleaning tasks.

According to reports Vijaya, a parent, expressed her frustration. She said, “We send our children to school to study, not to clean.” She further complained that her kid returned home too tired. She alleged that the children spent time cleaning instead of learning.

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She also said “When they come home, they are too tired to do their homework. When we asked them why, they said they had spent their time cleaning the school and toilets instead of learning. It’s heartbreaking to hear this and it seems like the teachers are not focusing on their responsibilities to teach.”

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According to sources one of the three girls is suffering from severe leg pain due to intensive cleaning every day. The parents are worried about the impact of these cleaning duties on their children’s education, Health, and overall well-being. They believe that such responsibilities should not fall on such young and innocent students.

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Meanwhile, in contrast to Indian Schools the schools in Japan function differently. There the school children sweep and mop their own classrooms. The Children do the dusting, and clean hallways, staircases, doors, and windows. In some schools, they even clean the bathrooms. However, such tasks are allocated when they are older.

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Apart from that, they serve lunch prepared by the cooks to each other and clean up after lunchtime. The schools in Japan practice these activities to encourage a child to take care of his/her surroundings from a young age and always try to keep it clean.

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The practice in Japan is noteworthy and making it mandatory in India might also be a good adaptation. But the question remains as to why did the principal targeted only 3 tribal students for this task.

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