Protest against report seeking closure of Pashanshalas

PUNE: The parents of children studying in schools for stone quarry workers, teachers and experts have demanded re-examination of the state education department’s report recommending closure of the institutions alleging it was prepared without taking consent from the nine-member committee constituted by the government.
Bastu Rege, a part of the committee, said, “The state government had constituted the committee in 2012 having nine members, including myself.But we did not meet even once since then. The state project director, Maharashtra Prathmik Shikshan Parishad (MPSP), and secretary of education department Nand Kumar have submitted a false report with recommendations of shutting down the on-site schools for stone quarry workers.”
The parents of the children studying in these schools staged a dharna at the state education department in the city. Rege said the demonstration would not be withdrawn till the state government agreed to schedule a meeting of the nine committee members.
Rege, the founder of Santulan, a non-government organization (NGO) working for the upliftment of the quarry workers, said they had approached the state education department for re-examining the guideline report and scheduling a meeting of the nine-member committee to decide the guidelines for the children of stone quarry workers.
Sunil Chahuhan, the joint director of the state primary education department, said, “The demands raised by the teachers and parents would be looked into and submitted to the MPSP, which is looking after this project. Proper action would be undertaken at the government-level after reviewing the status.”
In 2013, the committee visited the schools for quarry workers’ children in Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Sangli and Nashik. But nothing happened thereafter. The committee was established to bring the schools for the children of stone quarry workers under the purview of the Right to Education Act.
According to Rege, as many as 32,600 children of stone quarry workers from 28 districts in the state are out-of-school.
Santulan was the first NGO to build a school for quarry workers’ children at Wagholi in 1997. It spread wings to five districts over the next 10 years.