Girl who fled Pak denied school admission for lack of documents

Kalpana, 17, walked across border into India with her parents and three brothers in June 2022 because of 'adverse prevailing condition'

Manish Sisodia.: File picture

Basant Kumar Mohanty   |   TT  |  New Delhi   |   12.09.22  : A Pakistani Hindu girl living in a refugee colony here is being denied school admission for lack of documents and has sought the Delhi government’s help.

Kalpana, 17, walked across the border into India with her parents and three brothers in June this year because of the “adverse prevailing condition in Pakistan”. The family lives in the Bhatti Mines area of south Delhi.

Her three brothers, who studied in primary and upper primary classes in Pakistan’s Hyderabad city, have secured admission to the Government Co-Education Senior Secondary School, Bhatti Mines.

But the school has rejected an application for admission from Kalpana, who wants to enrol in Class X, because she has no documents relating to her previous school and class performance, according to Ashok Agrawal, a Right to Education (RTE) activist and president of the All India Parents’ Association.

“The family has no document about the education of the children,” Agrawal said.

He said that under the RTE Act, schools cannot deny education to children aged up to 14 years who seek admission to Class VIII or a lower class even if they have no documents.

“So her brothers got admission but the schools are demanding documents from her,” Agrawal said.

Kalpana’s father Karam Chand works as a day labourer, he said.

Agrawal has written to Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia requesting him to direct the school to grant admission to Kalpana. He has written that Kalpana had passed Class IX in Pakistan and there is very little possibility of her being able to retrieve the documents.

Sisodia had helped another Pakistani Hindu refugee student who had no documents, Madhu, secure school admission in 2016.