Kerala education minister rebukes schools for making students wash teacher's feet

Thiruvananthapuram: Gurupooja ceremony conducted at a couple of schools in Kerala on the occasion Guru Purnima turned controversial when students were made to clean their teachers' feet. The state education minister came out in the open to reprimand the teachers for conducting such practices.

While General Education Minister V Sivankutty sought a report from the director general of education, the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also intervened in the matter.

Saraswathi Vidyalaya in Bandadka in Kasaragod, Vidyadhiraja Vidyapeetom Sainik School in Mavelikara and Vivekananda Vidyapeedom Sreekandapuram were among the schools that organized the Gurupooja.

Videos of the ceremony at some of these schools have gone viral.

Students can be seen symbolically cleaning the feet of teachers and offering pooja.

The education minister reacted that making children clean the feet of teachers was not acceptable for a progressive society like Kerala.

"Such practices need to be done away with," he said.

CPM's student outfit Students Federation of India also flayed the practice.

The school authorities reportedly maintained that no students were forced to take part in the ceremony and it was conducted during previous years also in some schools.