School upgrade demands in Haryana: Students go on strike, parents lock teachers

In more protests demanding upgrade of primary and mid-level schools to senior secondary levels in Haryana, nearly 50 girl students went on an indefinite hunger strike in Jind while parents in Palwal locked some teachers inside a school building.
The incidents come days after students in Rewari and Gurgaon held protests over a similar demand.
The protest in Palwal saw the parents locking the teachers of the government-run primary school in Khirbi village after alleging that a staff crunch was affecting studies of their wards and that teachers were irregular in taking classes.
Some of them said the children in the village had no option but to travel to Hodal, Bhiduki and Hassanpur for further studies.

They shouted slogans against the Education Department, alleging that political leaders and authorities paid no heed to their repeated requests for upgrading the school.
District Education Officer Anil Sharma rushed to the scene and assured the protesting parents that there demands will be met.

"The department has already started the process of recruiting more teachers for the school," he said.
In Jind, the students locked the gate of the Karsola Government High School and launched their protest outside it along with villagers, Julana Police Station in-charge Chandrabahan said.
The principal and teachers were not allowed to enter the school, and several attempts to end the protest were futile, he said.

"At present, the school is only till Class X and with around 300 students it meets all the parameters required to be upgraded to school with classes till standard XII," Karsola sarpanch Rajpal said.
"Several requests were made to the government to upgrade the school, however, all have fell on deaf ears," he said.
The sarpanch said the gates will not be opened till the government assures us that the school will be upgraded.
"For Class 12, students have to go to schools in Jind and Rohtak, which are far away from the village. This has resulted in girl students dropping out," Rajpal said.

Villagers claimed that four years ago the local MP had been requested to put forth their demand to upgrade the school to the government.
However, Julana education officer Adarsh Rajan said, "A letter has been written to the Education Department for upgrading the Karsola Government High School."
"A school can be upgraded to Class 12, only, if it has at least 150 students and there is no other school within five kilometres. The decision to upgrade this school will be taken by the School Upgrade Directorate," he said.