The government school in Chandrasekharpur. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 24: The state government today transferred the headmistress of Rail Vihar Government High School, Bijayalakshmi Mohanty, after four students were drowned in a canal on the city outskirts on October 21.

The school authorities had allegedly asked the students — Abhijit Sabat, Bablu Digal, Pratap Chandra Routray and Manas Ranjan Naik — not to attend classes, as a punishment for having indulged in acts of indiscipline.

However, the headmistress on Tuesday said: “We have not suspended anyone from the school. Some of them were not coming to the school regularly since Saturday. However, we did not inform their parents, as we usually do when students skip school, for more than three days.”

School and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra said the transfer had been ordered on the basis of a report of an inquiry committee conducted by the administration.

The students had gone to the canal to take a bath in the Puri main canal near Barang on the city outskirts on Tuesday afternoon. Their parents were also not aware of the fact that their wards had been suspended from the school for 15 days. “There was a communication gap between the parents and the teachers,” said the minister.

Abhijit’s father had said he was not aware of his son’s visit to the zoo.

“He left for school on time as usual. The school authorities did not inform us about any kind of disciplinary action against him,” he had said on Tuesday.

The authorities of the school at Chandrashekharpur had suspended as many as 14 Class IX students. On Tuesday, they went to the Barang-Puri main canal on a pleasure trip.

The students were taking a bath in the canal when a strong current swept four of them. Later, the their bodies were recovered.

The school and mass education department had ordered an inquiry by a joint team consisting of the Khurda sub-collector and the district education officer, who had conducted the probe and submitted the report to the state government.The teachers did not inform the guardians that the students had been suspended, the report stated.

Mishra said the government tracked students’ attendance in schools up to Class VIII. But, the practice does not include keeping a track of attendance of those studying in Class IX and X.

The minister said the state government from now onwards would look into the practice of keeping a track of students’ attendance, which was being implemented in other states for Class IX and X and come out with a set of guidelines.