Parents to move court against Dastur school

Policemen from the Bund Garden police station had to be called in as a spat between parents of failed students and the management at the Sardar Dastur Boys High School threatened to go out of hand yesterday.

Thirty students from the school were detained in Std IX because of poor academic performance, but parents saidu00a0 the real reason their children had been failed was that they had complained against teachers who tortured them.

The parents had demanded that officers from the Zilla Parishad (ZP) recheck the answer papers of the faled students. Yesterday, ZP officials said the students concerned could not be promoted as they did not deserve any more marks.u00a0 They said every test paper, right from unit tests to final exams had been assessed and papers were found to have been fairly evaluated by the teachers.

"If 30 students from the same standard have been detained, is it not also the responsibility of the school or its shortcoming? They ill-treated our children for long and created pressure because of which their grades fell," said Prasad Palkar, parent of a detained Std IX student. "We will file a writ petition in court against the school, asking for justice," said Palkar.

Lily Patel, principal of the school, had a different story to tell. "From last year, the syllabus was revised, especially in maths, which was now on CBSE pattern. The students were not doing too well, as we saw in first unit tests paper, since their basics weren't clear. That's why we asked these parents to switch to general maths, but they ignored us," said Patel.