A resident of Huncha in Hosanagar taluk has alleged that a teacher ‘forced’ his daughter to consume an egg on Tuesday in the school along with her classmates.
V. Srikanth, the complainant, said his daughter had been studying in class 2 at the Karnataka Public School at Amrutha in Hosanagar taluk. When the parents’ meeting was held earlier, he had clearly told the teachers that his daughter would not take eggs. “However, the headmaster and assistant teacher Puttaswamy forced my daughter to consume egg. This has hurt our religious practices, besides affecting the health of the child”, he stated.
Following the complaint, DDPI C.R. Parameshwarappa and BEO H.R. Krishnamurthy visited the school on Thursday and held a meeting with the teachers and parents. During the meeting, it came out that the teacher had spoken about the advantages of eating eggs during his class, and that had motivated the children to prefer eggs to chikki.
“The teacher, during his class, had spoken about eggs. Five students, who had not taken eggs so far, tasted eggs on Tuesday. Of them, one student belongs to a family whose food culture does not include eggs. We held a meeting with the parents and teachers. The teacher said that he had spoken about eggs in his class, but he did not force anybody to eat them. In fact, he was not present when the girl had an egg during lunch. The teachers in the school felt that they should have consulted the parents when the girl chose to eat eggs, which she did not do regularly”, said Krishnamurthy, the BEO.
Further, the officer said that the teachers had been instructed to consult parents on the students’ choice of food items in the school.
The State government distributes eggs, bananas, or ground chikki to students in government and aided schools twice a week.
Letter of apology
Mr. Srikanth, who also works as a teacher in the high school wing of the same school, said that the teacher admitted to his mistake and gave him a letter of apology.
