Schools shut doors to 40 HIV kids, force them into isolation

"I know I'm going to die soon but before I breathe my last I want to enter a classroom and sit with boys and girls of my age. I want to feel how it is to sit in a classroom."

These are the words of 12-year-old Geeta (name changed), who has HIV/AIDS and is not allowed to enter her school here. She is one of the 40 children at Bhagini Nivedita, a special hostel for HIV-affected children in Sangli city in southern Maharashtra, who are being denied schooling.

There are four schools in the area - two zilla parishad schools, one high school and one municipal school - where these children can go. But they are not let in. Authorities at all these schools refused to comment when The Indian Express contacted them.

Out of the 40 children, 10 are just four years old and need admission to kindergarten. Many of them have in fact been given admission as per school records, but none is allowed to enter the premises and sit in their classrooms.

The main reason given by the schools is: parents' objection.

Geeta, who was orphaned a few years ago when her parents died of HIV-related illnesses, and other children of school-going age at the hostel have been learning their letters and numbers within the walls of Bhagini Nivedita. They are shepherded once a year to isolated examination halls in their respective schools to sit for the annual exams.

"We impart informal education to these kids, teaching them to read and write," said Neeta Damle, who works with Bhagini Nivedita.

The local school authorities do not talk about this issue. But a teacher told The Indian Express that "parents of other children won't allow HIV-affected students to share the same room as their own kids".

"They have put immense pressure on the school managements to keep them out," he said.

Maharashtra's Minister of State for School Education, Hassan Mushrif, said : "This is a serious matter and I will personally take it up with local officials."

Damle had asked the zilla parishad to appoint a teacher for the hostel kids but the primary education officer at Sangli, N B Patil, said: "We can't appoint a teacher who will go and teach these children separately."