INTERVIEW
Q. Do you like going to school?
A. Yes, very much. I like studying in my school,
along with my friends.Q. Unfortunately, you cannot write. How do
you manage at school?
A. I write with my toes, but I cannot write every-
thing down. My friends help me out.Q. How do your friends treat you?
A. They are a bit mischievous, we get into fights,
but I like all of them.Q. What about your siblings?
A. I have two brothers and two sisters. I am the
eldest and I have to look after them too.Q. Why do you want to study so much?
A. I could not study the first and second standard.
I was enrolled in 3rd standard by the teachers.
When I reached the 4th standard, I felt sad that
I won’t be able to study anymore and appealed
to the then Chief Minister Ommen Chandy to
upgrade my school from lower primary to upper
primary. He took special care in my case and
so I could study till 7th. When I reached 7th
standard, I submitted a request to Chief Minister
Pinarayi Vijayan Sir, but for some reason, it was
not approved.Q. The High Court ruled in your favour, ask-
ing the education department to arrange
transport for you and your mom. Why didn’t
you accept it?
A. That was not possible for me as my mother is
pregnant which makes travel difficult for her, also
I have my siblings to look after. The other option
was to study from home but I want to study along
with my friends. That is why I’m going forward
with this protest.Q. What do you aim to achieve with this
protest?
A. The reason I decided to start a protest is
that this will not only benefit me but also many
underprivileged children from my locality. So, I
am ready to see this protest through to its end.Q. What do you want to become when you
grow up?
A. I want to become an engineer.Jamseena. He was
born without arms; his
legs were deformed
and he could not
even breastfeed as his
facial muscles too had
deformities, which
affected his men-
tal growth and also
makes him lisp. He
was home-schooled
till he completed
second standard and
joined the nearby
school, which was
then a lower primary
school, in class III. It
had classes only up to
fourth standard and so he moved a petition to the then Chief
Minister Oommen Chandy and got the school upgraded to its
present status with classes up to the seventh standard in 2015.
When he was in 7th standard, Aasim again submitted a
request to the current Chief Minister to upgrade the upper
primary school to a High School which would allow him
to complete his Senior Secondary education. But after his
request was turned down by the state education department,
he approached the High Court of Kerala. The High Court gave
a favourable order, instructing the state government to make
transport facilities available for Aasim and his mother to go to
a school situated six kilometres away.
Bureaucratic apathy
Meanwhile, in response to an appeal made to the Prime Min-
ister’s Office by social worker Noushad Thekkayil on behalf of
Aasim, the Secretary, Department of School Education and
Literacy under the Ministry of HRD, gave a direction to the
Secretary of Kerala’s General Education Department to take
‘appropriate action’. However, the state education department
pleaded that its hands were tied as the matter was sub judice.
A travesty of RTE
Aasim’s case is a travesty of the provisions of the Right to Edu-
cation Act, which clearly ‘assigns duties to the local authority to
ensure that it provides free and compulsory elementary educa-
tion to every child, in a neighbourhood school’.
The irony is that Aasim is a recipient of ‘Ujwala Balyam’
(Radiant Childhood) award constituted by the Department
of Women and Child Development, Kerala government, to
honour children excelling in arts, sports, literature, social and
cultural avenues.
The special child, who has already lost a year of his studies,
is not ready to compromise and continues to fight, not just for
himself, but for all the other students in Velimanna who had to
take transfer certificate from the 94-year-old school and face
hardships while studying elsewhere.