Parents of Ryan Int’l Students Rue Putting Brand Over Safety

A 15-kilometre stretch lies between Huda City Centre in Gurugram and Bhondsi village on the outskirts of the city. It is in this village that the controversial Ryan International School is located. However, they are worlds apart.

This ‘distance’ is apparent as one commutes from the bustling city, with towering office complexes, top-range branded stores and apartment complexes, to Bhondsi where the roads are not paved, surrounded by a stretch of barren land where people are sparsely seen. As the city fades and the outskirts become more prominent, so do the number of schools that line the stretch. Even more prominent than the schools are their neighbours – the wine shops.

Tucked away inside one such unlaid road is Ryan International School, where more than 3,000 students reportedly study.

A 7-year-old boy from the school was murdered while using the toilet inside the school premises. Soon, the Haryana Police arrested Ashok Kumar, a bus conductor employed with the school, after he confessed to committing the crime.

Parents of the victim, students and alumni, and even locals, claim foul play by the police and demand CBI probe into the matter.

‘A Proud Father Thakur’

For Barun Chander Thakur, 8 September was like any other day until he received a call informing him of his child’s death. And suddenly, everything in his life tumbled, including the hope for a better future.

Thakur, a graduate, is working as a manager in a garment factory. Thakur’s family, originally from Bihar, shifted to Haryana about two decades ago looking for better employment opportunities.

Speaking to The Quint, a relative said,

Barun and his wife chose this school because it had a name. It did not occur to them to question the security situation because Indian schools are perceived to be safe spaces. Parents were not let beyond the door, except on parent-teacher meet days.

‘A proud father’, is how a group of relatives describe Thakur. The parents had reportedly encouraged the victim and his sister to participate in more extra-curricular activities because Thakur never got the opportunity to.

“In our families, not everyone speaks English. So Barun was always proud that his children could talk in English. It might not seem like a big thing to others, but for us it is,” added the relative.

‘Wanted to Give Her the Best We Can’

Just a few houses away from Thakur’s house is the house of Sunny Kumar, whose daughter is studying in class III. Sunny Kumar is working as a private contractor in Gurugram.

I studied in a government school, and my wife has not completed school. Like every other parent, we want to give the best of whatever we can to our daughter. I used to travel ten kilometres to school every day. My family’s financial situation was different. But today, I can afford to send my daughter to a good private school. At least, what I thought was good till now.

Sunny Kumar, Parent

But did the parents compromise on scrutinising the school more closely, influenced simply by the ‘international’ tag attached to its name? Were they aware of the fact that there existed a wine shop just 27 steps away from the school?

Former students of the school claim that the CCTV cameras were installed only last year and that most of them did not work. Not just this, according to some alumni, there are ten entry points to the school, most of which are unmanned or without a compound wall.

A question that protesting parents confess to asking themselves, and each other, is whether they have compromised on security considerations in the urge to make a generational leap.

Leading the protests against the school management is Inder Pandey, the parent of a Class V student from the school.

“We pay annual fees of Rs 70,000. We as parents assume that proper security will be given to students. I never went to schools like this. My school did not have a fancy name or branches across the country. It was a small school with a handful of kids, funded by the government. Today, I have realised that I gave my child a brand name, but compromised his safety,” said Inder Pandey.

Ajay Rachit* is working in an MNC as a superintendent. He says he started as a clerk and knows what it means to be treated as one, which is one of the main reasons he chose to put his daughter in Ryan International.

I have personally experienced what it means to come from a sound educational background. In our fickle world, name matters more than anything else. Even though I was better at my job, I was denied promotions at the right time because I did not know how to converse with clients in English fluently. These are the things that I thought mattered in the world. But I was wrong.

Ajay Rachit

Rachit, a native of Hisar, shifted to Gurugram during the early 2000s. He added that he has learnt his lesson and will shift his daughter to another school next academic year.

This is not the first time Ryan International has gotten embroiled in such controversy. In May 2016, a Class III student from this very campus died after he was hit by a car after he was dropped off by the school bus driver on the wrong side. In another incident on 30 January 2017, a primary school student from the school’s Vasant Kunj campus was found dead inside a water storage tank.

None of the parents were aware that the school did not have a full time Principal for almost the entire year. They were also unaware that the CCTV cameras weren’t working in the campus. They did not know that the workers in the school used the same toilets as their children. And most importantly, they were not aware how security measures were implemented by the school.

From the loud chants demanding that the Chairman of the school address their queries, it looks like the parents have finally awakened.

And as they shouted slogans demanding justice for the victim, most of the protesting parents agreed that safety and security of their child came before a brand name – even ones with ‘international’ tags.

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