Parents move HC over school’s shift of SSC section

Mumbai: The Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE), an NGO that works against commercialisation of education, and a few parents of New Era School at Hughes Road jointly filed a case in the high court against the school management’s decision to shift its SSC section to D N Road. The New Era School—set up more than 70 years ago by M T Vyas, a staunch supporter of the country’s independence movement—offered only the SSC curriculum until it was taken over by the Aditya Birla Group over a year ago. The school now offers the International General Certificate of Secondary Education curriculum as well as SSC. A few months ago, the Birlas announced plans to shift the entire SSC section to a seven-storeyed building near CST station. “We have objected to the management’s decision to shift the SSC section to a location that is 4.5 km away from where the children were studying earlier. The new school building has no compound and opens directly on to a footpath. Where will the children play?’’ said Jayant Jain, former president of FFE. The petition states that the school management is commercialising education and has attempted to clear SSC students out of the building to make way for IGCSE students. While SSC students pay a fee of around Rs 20,000 a year, for IGCSE students the figure crosses Rs 4 lakh. The management told parents that the school building was unsafe and needed repair. The petition countered that the building was renovated a year ago at a cost of Rs 7.5 crore. “The school’s own architect has certified the building as safe,’’ Jain said. While IGCSE students will be shifted temporarily to a new location, in case of SSC students,the move will be permanent. In its reply to an RTI application filed by FFE, the BMC’s D ward office said the New Era building was not on its list of unsafe or dilapidated structures. The management refused to comment on the subject.