The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Pavan’s death: students still in grip of fear

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Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Pavan’s death: students still in grip of fear

G. Nagaraja

Many children in the village do not want to go to school

Government schools not the choice of many
Pavan’s parents depose before the inquiry officer

— Photo: A.V.G. Prasad

Puppalla Lokesh, brother of Saidurga Pavan, deposing before District Education Officer T. Sriramamurthy at Tallagokavaram village in West Govadari district on Monday.

TALLA GOKAVARAM (WEST GODAVARI DISTRICT): “I will not go to school,” says Borra Tulasi from this village and a class VI student of Siddhartha Public School which came under a sharp criticism from various walks of public life in the wake of death of a class VII student Puppalla Saidurga Pavan allegedly due to beating by his teacher.

Tulasi, Pavan’s, immediate neighbour, is still in the grip of fear and shock when it proved to be a daunting task for her parents not to let her drop out from school.

Similar is the case with over 20 children from this upland village who are studying in various corporate schools in the city as day scholars.

Gloom cast over the Pavan’s native village on the observance of the fifth-day ceremony on Monday. “We don’t send our children to school if we have any inkling of what is in store for them at school,” Borra Srinivasa Rao, Tulasi’s father says.

There is an upper primary school in the village and a high school a couple of km away at Vegivada run by the government. But they failed to be a preferred choice for the rural folks.

“The government schools are run by ‘vidya volunteers’ with only 10th class as the educational qualification. If that is the case, what do our children learn in government schools,” asks Mr. Srinivasa Rao. “That is the reason why, we are forced to opt for corporate schools risking the lives of our children,” he adds.

Management blamed

Deposing before District Education Officer T. Sriramamurthy during an inquiry into the death of Saidurga Pavan at the village, Puppalla Krishna Varaprasad and Sivalakshmi, the victim’s parents, said negligence by the management in taking care of students was clearly established in the case of their son. They said the personnel of the Siddartha Public School took the victim to a private hospital in a van in an unconscious state and disappeared from the scene after declaring him ‘brought dead’ by hospital authorities.

“The management did not even bother to inform me about my son’s condition,” Mr. Varaprasad regretted.

Lokesh, a class IV student of the same school and victim’s younger brother, told the inquiry officer that he saw Pavan collapsing with blood oozing out from ears, nose and mouth even as his teacher slapped him on the temples, punched him in the back by holding his neck. The teacher summoned a school worker to clean the blood stains on the floor before he took his brother to the hospital,” Lokesh, a witness to the scene, recollected.

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