KM SPECIAL SCHOOL BULLETIN May 20, 2003

Indian School Ghubra agreed to reduce school fee by RO 3 per student, then did not implement the decision

It is revealed here that the patron of Indian Schools, K.M.Meena wanted Indian School Al Ghubra to reduce monthly fees by RO 5 per student and the school promoter had agreed to reduce it by RO 3 per student after protracted negotiations. However, after orally agreeing to implement the fee reducation plan, the school management was dilly dallying for several months without implementing the decision.

The patron and the board would not have revoked the Memorandum of Understanding between Dr. P.Mohammed Ali and the former Indian Ambassador Renjith Guptha, if the school management implemented the fee reduction proposal made by the patron. According to the patron, the school is charging the highest fees without any regard for the Indian community. The promoter had agreed to give fees concession to more students, but the patron said he could not verify whether such measures are implemented because the board or the patron do not have direct access to the school administration. Member of Parliament from Kerala, E.Ahmed, (His son Raes Ahmed is the president of Indian School Al Ghubra Management Committee) and other politicians like P.C.Thomas of Kerala Congress have been strongly lobbying in New Delhi for the private schools , said sources close to the Ambassador. Initially the school wanted to introduce day school and instead of reducing the fees wanted to provided free lunch to the students. However, due to resistance from parents and others, the proposal was not accepted.

Even though the Indian School Wadi Kabir run by the Hindu Mahajan Association has been collecting less fees than the Al Ghubra school, itspromoters have been treating the hold on school as a prestige issue.

The senior executive of a leading business house, who was removed from the school board when he sided with the private promoters was also actively involved in the lobbying to transfer the ambassador. Recently, E.Ahmed had raised serious questions about the embassy's (or ambassador's?) inability to handle some of the labour disputes in Oman in the Indian Parliament. P.C.Thomas had written long recommendation letters to Satanam Singh formrer Indian Ambassador and K.M.Meena to give the Seeb Indian school to George Mathew, a private promoter. However, Meena's decision to revoke the agreement and make it a community school invited the displeasure of these political big wigs. A senior official in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi called by diplomats with a nick name Bhayankar, has also been involved in the transfer move because he wanted Meena to support the private school lobby. keralamonitor.com

MP's New Love Affair with Workers in the Gulf

E.Ahmed

New Delhi -A leading Member of Parliement (M.P.)from Kerala E.Ahmed has recently raised a hue and cry about the problems of a group of workers in Muscat on the basis of a report filed by a Gulf newspaper. While the Gulf media wrote several such reports to help ordinary workers, did the MP or their associates take up the matter in Indian Parliament? Is it a case just shedding Crockodiles Tear to settle score with some people for other reasons?

The respected M.P is having keen interest in the Gulf region, especially in running a community school converted into a private business. His offspring is heading the Managment Committee of one of the Indian schools in the Gulf. The school which is credited with charging the highest fees has been constantly asked by a diplomat to reduce fees. The diplomat is known to be taking some initiative to revoke a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the embassy with the private businessmen ( links to the MP), as he refused to reduce fees. It is learned that the school raised fees three times without getting the prior approval of the authorities as mentioned in the MoU. Is the M.P having any special interest in a school charging the highest fees? Is there any link between the two issues? Full Report

PC Thomas Interfere in Indian School Matters

Upper Caste Brahmins Cannot Digest a Backward Class Diplomat Gaining Popularity

NEW DELHI - The influence of upper caste superiors and the clout enjoyed by Gujarathi Bhramins business families with the ruling BJP, a Hindu fundamentalist party, has helped the school lobby to oust Meena, who happened to hail from the backward community in Rajasthan. The Brahmin dominated BJPleadership and the Indian Foreign Service, have once again proved their strong faith in Manusmrithi by harassing and transfering a backward Hindu diplomat for no valid reasons. According to Manusmrithi, upper caste should rule the backward community and no backward community member can rule upper castes! Each class has its own division of labour and lower class people are not supposed to get educatin or occupy important positions in society.

While K.M.Meena has become quite popular among the ordinary members of Indian community because of his bold moves, a coterie of Brahmin and upper caste businessmen and bureaucrats have been quite disturbed by the backward class ambassador's actions. "He is a Shudra and how can he dictate terms to us?" an upper caste board member reportedly asked one of his colleagues. In India, harassment of backward people has been a common tendency among upper caste Hindus. Even B.R.Ambedkar, who was the main force behind the drafting of Indian Constitution, faced the wrath and discrimination of the upper caste seniors. A senior members of the Ministry of External Affairs is well known for harassing and ridiculing lower caste officials. With the BJP coming to power, this tendency has become stronger.

Cheap comments about the caste and personal matters of backward diplomats is very common and complaints against such prejudice is never entertained by the senior IFS officials who are mostly Brahmins. Without concrete evidence in writing, no one can complaint against racial discrimination in the Indian Foreign Service or Indian Administrative Service. Meena has proved beyond doubt that his upper caste superiors are no match for his skills as a diplomat. Even though Meena is known to have made several representations and complaints against such discrimination and harassment to various government agencies, nothing has happened because the system is dominated by the upper caste Hindus. The situation has become worse under BJP Government, which is working overtime to create a Rama Rajya in India. Even though it has been trying to attract the backward classes and Dalits to its fold by projecting some bac kward class leaders like Uma Bharathi, Kalyan Sing et al, the overall mentality of the leadership is to treat them lower caste people as "untouchables."

Traditionally the Hindu society has been divided into four -- Brahmins, Kshathriyas, Vaishyas and Shoodras. While the vast majority of people belong to the last two categories, the upper caste dominate them in a subtle manner. In the Indian Foreign Service and Indian Administrative Service, there is a clear cut domination by the upper caste. BJP is also trying to enhance its presence all over the country by roping in the backward community. The BJP cadres who have butchered thousands of Muslims in communal riots, especially after the demolition of Babri Masjid, occasionally turn against other minorities or the backward classes. The K.M.Meena transfer episode has once again reiterated the BJP position that it continues to remain a Brahmin party and want to keep the backward classes away from sharing power or authority -keralamonitor.com

P.C.Thomas, other politicians interfere in Indian School issue

keralamonitor correspondent

New Delhi: Considerable political pressure is being exerted on the Indian Ambassador in Muscat K.M.Meena by school promoter so that the Patron of Indian Schools give up his much Indian school reform agenda and allow private promoters to make quick bucks from Indian schools in Oman. It is reliably learnt that Mr.George Mathew, the private promoter of the proposed school in Seeb has been shuttling between New Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram and Muscat to influence Indian politicians from both the ruling coalition and opposition to sabotage the Indian Ambassador's plan to rationalise fees structure in favour of large number of ordinary parents and encourage community schools, which are much cheaper than the private schools.

P.C.Thomas, Member of Parliament from Kerala.

Champion of the poor in covert alliance with NRI business lobyy?

It is learned that P.C.Thomas, Member of Parliament from Kerala has been trying to interfere in the independent functioning of Indian Embassy in Muscat by using his political clout in Thiruvananthapuram and New Delhi to favour private school promoter and prevent the Indian Ambassador from reducing the high school fees. In a handwritten letter addressed to the Indian Ambassador in Muscat, P.C.Thomas MP has 'demanded' that the proposed school in Seeb should be given to Mr.George Mathew. Even though the private promoter has fixed the highest fees among various Indian community schools, the people's representative from Kerala is trying becoming and extra constitutional power influencing Ambassador's working in foreign countries. Full Report Indian politicians intervene to cover up Indian School Controversy

Internet connectivity drive for rural schools in South Africa

TZANEEN, 19 May (IRIN) - "Our lives will never be the same," said Paul Lebepe, the principal of a rural high school in South Africa's northern Limpopo province, whose students are benefiting from a new corporate sponsored computer centre.

While similar public/private sector partnerships aimed at bridging the digital divide have become increasingly common in South Africa, what sets this particular project apart is that schools are helped to become more self-sufficient.

This has been done through the additional donation of a public phone shop to schools benefiting from the programme - a boon in telecomms-deprived rural South Africa.

Sixty percent of the profit generated by these phone shops is ploughed back into the school and the remaining 40 percent used to cover the operating costs of the shop. The shops also create employment for members of the community who are appointed to manage the day to day operations.

The project has been sponsored by telecoms giant MTN.

Rudi Matjokane of the MTN Foundation, the social responsibility arm of the mobile phone network operator, told IRIN that 11 schools across the Limpopo province had benefited from the project. The schools receive about 10 computers with Microsoft donated software, a server, printer and fax. Some have already been connected to the internet and the others will soon be online.

So far three schools have been equipped with phone shops, but it is envisaged that each of the 11 schools will have one.

The project is also being rolled out to schools in the central Mpumalanga and coastal KwaZulu-Natal provinces.

Lebepe's school, Molabosane High, is situated in the village of Rita, about 30 km outside the small town of Tzaneen. It was built mostly through his fundraising efforts. Donations from the embassies of the United States and Australia, as well as from the Anglo-American mining conglomerate, paid for the building of an administration block and several classrooms.

Molabosane's computer centre was officially opened on 10 April and Lebepe believes the impact on learners and staff has been immense.

"We think it's a big investment - even our teachers, some of the staff older than I, have started now to work on the computers. Our lives will never be the same! Eventually there will be no learner who leaves our school who is not computer literate," boasted Lebepe.

When IRIN visited the school, the enthusiasm of the learners was evident. A group of them were impatiently waiting outside for an earlier group's lesson to end at 4:00pm, well after school hours.

One of those pupils, 13-year-old Beauty Letsoalo, told IRIN she was willing to wait late for computer lessons as she knew this would help her reach her goal of becoming either a doctor or an information technology professional.

"People want to learn computers, but there are not many," she said. It was her second basic computer literacy lesson, which represents her first interaction with computers.

For Beauty and most of her fellow pupils, computers were something far removed from the reality of life in rural South Africa, which still bears the scars of the apartheid era's 'bantu education'.

"What can you say when you realise some of them have never seen a computer before? They never knew what a mouse was, they only knew that a mouse was some animal you find at home sometimes. It's a whole new world being opened up for them," Lebepe said.

Under apartheid, blacks were given an inferior education and job reservation meant they could never aspire to professions designated for white people only.

"In the past the government neglected our [black] schools, it is really only now that they are starting to do something, and the private sector has come in and said 'we can make a big difference'... that goes a long way," Lebepe said.

For the moment only grade 8 and grade 12 learners can be accommodated in the computer centre. But Lebepe hopes that a schedule can be worked out so that all 854 learners can begin basic computer literacy lessons, even if it means working weekends.

"They are young and open to learning. Already we work six days a week because of the special mathematics class on Saturdays, using the "Learning Channel" tapes and VCR and TV donated by MTN," Lebepe added.

Word has spread and Lebepe has already received requests from other schools to use the facilities at Molabosane High. "Some of them [schools] do not even have electricity," he noted.

Molabosane is due to be connected to the internet in June, something Lebepe is looking forward to "[as] I will be able to read what you have put out on the internet about our school," he said.