Headmistress suspended for closing school on son’s wedding

A headmistress and the entire staff of a Doda school have been suspended after she declared a school holiday on her son’s wedding. Headmistress Sayeeda Anjum, without seeking permission from the authorities, had declared a holiday in the school having over 300 students.
On Tuesday, Javed Malik, sarpanch of Bharath village, visited the area for his personal work but found the school locked and a notice on the notice board signed by the headmistress, declaring closure of the school for her son’s wedding.
“The school shall remained closed on 03-04-16, the marriage ceremony of Touseef Ahmed of this institute. The notice signed by the headmaster read,” said Malik.
“I rang up Education Minister Naeem Akhter and told him that the school was closed and no student or teacher was present as there was no official holiday,” he added.
Malik said, “People used to complain to me about teachers of the school being absent, but this is the first incident when the entire staff remained absent as one of the schoolteachers was getting married.” The Education Minister on Wednesday directed the suspension of the entire school staff.
Taking serious note of the incident, Chief Education Officer, Doda, Mohammed Ashraf Rather and Director, School Education, Jammu, Smita Sethi placed the entire school staff under suspension. The teachers suspended are Javed Iqbal, Shakeel Ahmed, Bilal Ahmed, Nar Singh, Rayes Ahmed Natnoo, Abdul Latif Bandey and Touseef Ahmed.
“We have placed the entire staff of Government High School, Bhagla in the Bharath area of the district, under suspension as they declared a holiday on Tuesday to celebrate the wedding of the son of the school headmaster,” said Director, Education, Jammu, Smita Sethi.
“As soon as we got information, we conducted an inquiry and senior officials of the Education Department were sent to the school the same day. They found the school closed and the notice declaring the holiday,” Sethi said.
She said the preliminary inquiry had held the headmistress, teachers and those in the administration guilty of having remained “unauthorisedly” absent from duty and were suspended. “After the inquiry, strict action would be taken against the erring staff for putting the future of over 300 students at stake. They will be chargesheeted and action will be taken as per law.”