AAP holds protest against closure of schools in Haryana

Aam Aadmi Party leaders and workers staged a demonstration outside schools in several districts across Haryana on Monday against the State government’s decision to shut them down.

The Haryana government had recently announced to merge 105 high and middle schools with less than 25 and 20 students respectively with other schools within a radius of 3 km.

The demonstrations were held at Yamunanagar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Jhajjar, Kaithal, Charkhi Dadri and Mahendragarh districts, among other places. The students affected by the decision and their parents were also part of the protests.

AAP has been opposing the government’s decision to close the schools saying that it is anti-poor, anti-education and aimed at privatisation of education in the State.

Senior AAP leader and party’s national adviser Anurag Dhanda said the government’s justification to shut schools on the ground that there were not enough students and teachers was misleading. He said that it was the government’s responsibility to provide adequate facilities and staffers at these schools.

He claimed that 4 lakh students had shifted to government schools from private schools in Delhi over the past two years, but the Haryana government wanted to take away the right to education from the poor and push them into darkness. He said demonstrations would continue till the time the government rolled back the decision.

Former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda had on Saturday condemned the government’s decision to close schools and raised the issue of shortage of staffers.

New schools

Responding to the allegations of Mr. Hooda, Haryana Education Minister Kanwar Pal said the Congress government had closed 124 primary schools in 2011 and 385 primary schools in 2014.

The Education Minister said the government was merging schools having less number of students. He said that schools were also being opened keeping in view the interests of students and being upgraded as per the requirement.

Mr. Pal said that teachers were being appointed in schools where the number of students was increasing. New teachers would be recruited against the vacant posts in the State, he added.