The fight over the recent hijab issue at a Catholic management school in Kerala’s Ernakulam district got worse on Thursday. General Education Minister V. Sivankutty publicly told school authorities to stop making statements against the State government.
At a news conference in Thiruvananthapuram, the minister said that the school management of St. Rita’s Public School in Palluruthy, especially the PTA and its lawyer, were trying to make the situation political by making statements to the media.
Minister Says School Made Threats Sivankutty, the Minister of Government, said that the school’s public comments had a “threatening tone against the government.” He said they were trying to “make the government and the education department look bad without any legal reason.”
“I know that the problem has been fixed there.” The minister said, “So there was no need to keep making provocative statements.” He said that schools should stay places where people learn, not places where political interests are pushed. He pointed out that the PTA president and the school’s lawyer were the ones who were responding to the issue, not the school’s management.
The minister’s strongest warning stated that the school was actively going against the state’s authority: “The school management is directly going against the government.” No management has done this. They shouldn’t act like the rules don’t apply to them. “The law will take its course.”
The Heart of the Dispute and Resolution
The minister’s comments came after signs that the school management would take the case to the High Court. School principal Sr. Heleena had called the assessment from the Deputy Director of Education (DDE), which revealed major problems with the school, “devoid of facts.”
Sr. Heleena pointed to a 2018 High Court decision that she said gave the heads of aided schools the power to set a dress code for students. The Catholic school started the fight by saying that a student couldn’t wear a hijab to class since it wasn’t part of the school’s uniform and they couldn’t make an exception for one kid.
However, it seems that the disagreement was settled after negotiations on Tuesday that included Ernakulam MP Hibi Eden. The girl’s father consented to the school’s dress code and sent her to school without a hijab during the talks.
Do you think schools need clearer rules from the state to keep dress code problems from turning into political fights?