New Delhi: Amid the "Hijab Row" in Karnataka, schools run by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation have now been asked to prevent students from wearing any "religious attire" while at their respective school premises. The Education Committee of the SDMC on Friday asked its education department officials to ensure that the directions are followed.
SDMC's Education Committee Chairperson Nitika Sharma has written a letter in this connection, to the Director Education (SDMC).
However, SDMC's education department has not forwarded any such notice to the schools yet, according to school heads who spoke to Millennium Post. But they did state that if they do receive such notice from the Education department, they will follow them as required.
In her letter dated February 25, Sharma asked the education director to instruct all zonal officials to not allow students in SDMC primary schools in "religious attires" and ensure that schoolchildren come to their respective institutions in the prescribed dress code only.
The SDMC's move comes days after a parent in the Tukhmirpur area of northeast Delhi alleged that her daughter was asked by the teacher at the government school to remove her headscarf.
Sharma said attending classes wearing religious attire will instill a sense of "inequality" among students.
"School uniforms have been prescribed for the children of the school studying in the primary schools running under the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, in which the children of the school look very beautiful. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation also keeps on changing the color of the children's uniforms from time to time, due to this, the children studying in the school do not have an inferiority complex towards each other. It has been seen for some time now that some parents are sending their children to school wearing the clothes of their religion, which is not right in any way, this step will create a mentality of inequality within the children, which will affect their future," she wrote in the letter.
But when asked, she explained that Sikh turbans will be exempt from this rule because "they are used to tie hair".