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How can a school for special kids be on higher floors? HC wants to know.
HC has asked SAL management to reply on a petition filed by 41 parents for shifting the school for special children from the first floor to the ground floor of the building.
A strange and sad drama is being played out in Goa. A school for children with disabilities is fighting to stay on the ground floor of a building as it provides easy access and yet it is being shunted to higher floors. Amidst all the inconvenience caused to the children the education department, the Commission of People with disabilities and the Peoples High School are blaming each other. The high court of Bombay at Goa has issued a notice to the management of School for Appropriate Learning (SAL) managed by People's Educational Trust, Mala, asking them to reply on a petition filed by 41 parents for shifting the school for special children from the first floor to the ground floor of the building.
The petitioners have asked the High Court to intervene and direct the school to strictly implement the order passed by the state commission for persons with disabilities on February 17 in the matter.
The school for special children was started in Gangotri building in 1986 and was shifted to the second floor of People's High School building in 1989. A decade later, in 1999 the education department directed the school to move the classrooms on the ground floor to make them easily accessible to all disabled persons and finally in 2010, the school shifted from the second floor to the ground floor in compliance with the department's orders. However, in 2015, yet again the school shifted to 3 rooms on the first floor.
The director of education, in a letter addressed to SAL, on April 11, has directed it to inform the commissioner of persons with disabilities about the action it has taken in the matter. The commission, on the same day informed the director of education of the failure of Peoples' Educational Trust to comply with the order in not providing SFAL with barrier-free infrastructure stating it needs to be moved downstairs before the school reopens in June 2016.
The commission, in its order of February 17, leaned on the directorate of education to revoke October 6, 2015 order, where it stated that the decision to move the school to the first floor by the school management was appropriate.
Image courtesy: DNA, used for representational purpose only