Thiruvananthapuram: Student denied admission for not filling religion column

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The alleged denial of admission to a student in a school over not filling the religion column in application form has triggered a major controversy here.

The state education department has sought a report from the authorities of St Mary’s School on the matter following Kerala education minister C. Raveendranath’s intervention.

He asked the Director of Public Instructions and deputy director of education to look into the matter.

Naseem and Dhayna had sought admission for their son to the first standard at the government aided education institution. The school authorities told the parents that the registration of the student cannot be completed without filling the ‘religion ‘column in Kerala education department’s ‘Sampoorna’ portal.

Sampoorna is a school management system project implemented by the Kerala education department to automate the admission system and process of over 15,000 schools in the state.

Since the parents had written ‘nil’ in the religion column, the school authorities told them that the student could not be given admission.

It was pointed out that the software will not register the student if ‘nil’ is mentioned in that particular column.

With the school authorities insisting that the parents would be responsible for any issues that might occur in future, they decided not to admit the child in that institution.

The school management maintained that admission was not denied to the student. They insisted on filling up the column since benefits given to the students are also based on religion and if it is not filled or ‘nil’ is mentioned, the child might be deprived of the assistance in future.

However, the parents have now decided to admit the child in some other school even though the department has promised all help.