 |
| Guardians attend the meeting at Heritage Convent School in Imphal on Sunday. Picture by Eastern Projections |
Imphal, Feb. 8 : A scuffle broke out during a meeting of guardians and school authorities at the Heritage Convent at Uripok in Imphal West today over the payment of fees for the four months during which classes were not held.
Classes were boycotted for four months from September in the four valley districts of Manipur.
The Apunba Lup spearheaded and called for a series of agitation against the killings of passerby Rabina Devi and former militant Ch. Sanjit in an alleged fake encounter by police commandos in Imphal city on July 23 last year.
Classes resumed from January 10 after the Apunba Lup and the Rabina and Sanjit Joint Action Committees signed a truce with the Ibobi Singh government on January 8.
The Heritage Convent has classes from preparatory to Class VIII and is known as one of the reputed schools in the district.
While the guardians said no fees should be taken for the four months, the school authorities demanded that the entire amount should be paid, as they had to pay the teachers and other employees their salaries.
Three students’ organisations, the All Manipur Students Union, Manipuri Students Federation and Kangleipak Students Association, had, however, asked the schools to take only a month’s fee. The school authorities and guardians held a meeting on February 3 to thrash out the issue but failed to reach an agreement.
The second meeting was held today.
The school authorities and more than 1,000 guardians gathered on the school premises since 10am today to discuss the matter .
The guardians suddenly turned violent and went on the rampage after a lady teacher allegedly told them that the school would not allow the students to sit for examinations if the fees were not paid.
The guardians used chairs as missiles and damaged some glass windows and a speaker of the public address system. However, the situation was brought under control after a police team arrived on the scene.
The authorities and guardians settled the matter through talks after the teacher apologised.
The executive director of the school, Vikramjit Singh, said they would take only one month’s fee from the guardians.
The parents are yet to decide whether they will accept the proposal. The guardians later decided to form an association.
A spokesperson for the guardians said the proposed association would meet the authorities again to settle the fee issue and to find ways for smooth running of the school.