Minister backtracks on ex-pupils issue
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Suchart says a panel must be set up to see if students were treated unfairly
Education Minister Suchart Tadathamrongvej backtracked yesterday from his move to get all students linked to a public protest back at Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni) School.
The parents of some pupils staged a hunger strike for several days in protest against the famous school’s decision to strip their children of the right to continue studying there. They complained about alleged irregularities and Suchart stepped in on Monday.
However, the minister yesterday stopped short of instructing the school to take more than 200 of its old students back. Instead, he ordered committees be established to look into all complaints about school admissions, including the scandal surrounding Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni).
With the setting up of the committees, Bodindecha will not automatically take all its old students back, as some protesting parents and students were told on Monday. Instead, they will have to lodge complaints with a committee and wait for the results of an investigation.
“If the students were really unfairly stripped of their right to continue their studies at Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni), the committee will restore their right. But if not, the committee will provide some remedy by finding another school for them,” Office of Basic Education Commission (Obec) secretary general Chinnapat Bhumirat said.
The committees, set up in all educational service areas, started work yesterday afternoon.
Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni) is a very famous school. Some of its Mathayom-3 graduates believed they were unfairly told to leave because executives want to sell their seats to the children of rich parents who agree to pay large bribes or “tea money”.
“I have heard so many things about the school executives’ questionable behaviour but I never thought they would go as far as taking away seats from rightful students like me,” one of the graduates said on condition of anonymity.
Another student who attended a press conference at the Education Ministry yesterday also disclosed that some teachers were not happy with the school’s executives and were calling on parents to stage a protest at the school today.
The school said late yesterday it had 20 more seats up for grabs and it had told qualified applicants to claim these.
Chinnapat said Obec had thousands of schools under its supervision and had regulations to follow. “We won’t bow to pressure, otherwise many problems would arise,” he said, “We will stick to regulations.”
Chinnapat said school-admission regulations were announced late last year and no one could simply tear them down now. He said there was no need to transfer the director of Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni), Dr Suwat Wiwattananon, from his post now.
“We can wait till the probe concludes,” Chinnapat said. To date, Suwat has denied any wrongdoing.
Suchart tried to appease angry parents yesterday by promising to provide a greater number of quality schools for children in the future.
