Vibgyor tightens background check for staff

Vibgyor High, Marathahalli, which faced criticism after a six-year-old student was raped on its premises, has said it has now in place a more stringent background verification for staff and wall fencing for the school, among other steps.  

Responding to a show-cause notice issued by the State Department of Primary and Secondary Education, the school delineated the new steps taken by it in the aftermath of the incident. 

The notice was sent under the direction of Kaushik Mukherjee, State Chief Secretary,  asking the school why its NOC (no objection certificate) should not be withdrawn after the incident.

Vibgyor’s national spokesperson and president, corporate affairs, Vinod G Nair, on Wednesday said that in its reply, the school “highlighted the details of all the security arrangements existing in the school and the plans for new arrangements, including more CCTV cameras, more stringent background verification for staff, wall fencing of the school, etc”. 

Nair said Kimmane Ratnakar, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, had “expressed his satisfaction” and commented on the “excellent security arrangements” of the school. 

The school also detailed all “the assistance and co-operation provided to the police in their investigation”, he said. Rajkumar Khatri, Principal Secretary, Department of Primary and Secondary Education remained unavailable for his reaction. Mohammed Mohsin, Commissioner, Department of Public Instruction, said since the notice was sent at the secretary-level, he had no information.  
   Fee refund

Around 60 parents who decided to withdraw their children from the school after the incident have demanded that all the fees be refunded. Nair said only certain components of the fees were refundable. 

“Parents are well aware of this when they sign up for admission.”  Nair said the deposit amount, bus fee and fee for extracurricular activities would be refunded.

He made it clear that admission fee and annual fee for books would not be refunded. On the quarterly academic fees paid in April, July, October and January, he said, “All cheques given for the October and January quarters have already been refunded. The issue lies with the fee for the July-September quarter.” 

Since the quarter had already commenced and more than half the quarter had past, “we are not liable to refund this. Even the DDPI is in agreement with this.”

He said the school was offering to reconsider this on a case-to-case basis as a “humanitarian gesture”.

On the implementation of the 11 safety guidelines suggested by parents, Nair said the GPS system had been installed but other guidelines were not yet in place.