Chhattisgarh: School Headmistress Suspended For Turning Ramu into Ram

Raipur: Missing the letter ‘U’, while setting a particular question in the English paper of the Class four half-yearly examination, has led to suspension of a headmaster of a government primary school in Chhattisgarh.

For the ‘unintentional’ omission had turned a purported dog (mentioned in the question paper) into the revered deity of Hindus, Ram, leading to huge protests by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal here recently.

The question number one of the English question paper had asked ‘what is the name of the dog of Mona’ and sought the students to answer it from four multiple choices, one of them being ‘Ram’.

The examination was held on January three.

The development had led to the constitution of a five-member committee by the state government which submitted its report on Saturday.

The probe has held Sikha Soni, headmistress of the government primary school, Nakti, under Tilda block in Raipur district, responsible for the mess and recommended her suspension on charges of indiscipline for showing no seriousness in dealing with a sensitive matter like setting question paper for the school exam.

“The headmistress lacked seriousness while setting the question paper for the school examination which is a serious lapse on her part and hence, should be placed under suspension”, the probe committee recommended.

The committee also called for termination of assistant teacher Namrata Verma (contractual), who was the moderator of the question paper, for overlooking the error.

Raipur district education officer (DEO) in his report on the issue said that the headmistress had submitted her explanation on the issue, saying that she had mistakenly made ‘Ram’ instead of ‘Ramu’ as one of the multiple choices of the particular question and overlooked the error ‘unintentionally’ even after scrutinizing the question for the second time.

She sought apology for the mistake saying that she never intended to hurt religious sentiments of anyone with her ‘unintentional’ mistake.

Moderator of the question paper, Ms. Verma also made a similar plea in her explanation asking for forgiveness for having failed to notice the error and correct it.