GHAZIABAD: Many private schools in Ghaziabad were closed on Tuesday to protest the arrest of school officials in Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh after a student allegedly died by suicide at school on July 31.
Subhash Jain, president of Independent Schools’ Federation of India, an association of over 100 schools, said students and parents were informed in advance about the decision to keep the schools closed. “The one day closure is a form of our silent protest against the arrest of school officials in Azamgarh. We maintain that proper investigation should have been carried out before making any arrest. All our private schools in Ghaziabad are shut for one day and studies will resume as usual on Wednesday,” Jain said.
The call to keep schools closed for a day was given by Uttar Pradesh Unaided Private Schools Association.
Rajesh Kumar Srivas, Ghaziabad district inspector of schools , said all government schools were open. “We have about 419 schools in Ghaziabad and 196 of these are private schools affiliated to the CBSE or ICSE. No government school affiliated to UP Board was part of the closure call. There may be some of these unaided UP Board affiliated schools which may have observed the closure,” he said.
The district’s associations of parents said the closure of schools was a “pressure tactics” by private schools.
“Many of these schools are run by businessmen and corporates and they want to exert pressure on authorities to let go the arrested school officials in Azamgarh. Such closures causes disruption studies of students and we have asked the district officials to act against such schools,” said Vivek Tyagi, spokesperson of the Ghaziabad Parents’ Association.
