Many slum based school kids in Perumbakkam in Chennai drop out of schools now for this reason
Posted on: 03/Feb/2020 10:10:19 AM
In the month of January, more than 2000 families were evicted from Sathyanani Muthu Nagar at Park Town.
The news is many students of the above said families have dropped out of their school education. The reason cited was the travel from their new place Perumbakkam to their `old` schools was long and tiresome for these students. It was later brought out by a school student that initially he took 2 hour long bus trip from his ‘new’ house to his ‘old’ school but later got tired of the journey. He brought to light how his mother made an unsuccessful attempt to enrol him in a government school within the resettlement here.
Perumbakkam has got just 2 government schools namely elementary and a high school for the students and this inspite of over 2000 families being relocated here from slums in the last few years. The lack of vacancies in both these schools has forced the students to drop out.
A woman who got sanitary worker job in a hospital nearby expressed her thoughts. She spoke about how she got the job in the hospital nearby and how she could not take her son to his old school that was very far. She added that she was not in a position to spend Rs 90 daily to take her son to his ‘old’ school near Chintadripet.
It is well known that the bus facilities to Chintadripet were made free for the students but not for their parents. In the school hours, only few buses ply from Perumbakkam to Chennai city is known. A bus shuttle has been arranged by a public representative for the school kids and it is also full of students.
The school teachers belonging to the schools at Chintadripet and Park Town opened out that the students become tired when they reach the schools in the bus shuttle.
