Several parents held a demonstration at South Point High School as their children have not been allowed to study the Central Board of Secondary Education curriculum which the institute will introduce this year.
The school management claimed that it had made it clear to the parents that students for the CBSE course would be selected at random. Some of the protesters denied that the authorities had made any such announcement.
South Point High School, which has been under the state secondary education board since its inception in 1954, will open a CBSE wing for classes VI and VII from the next academic session starting February 2011.
The school had issued a notice asking parents of the students of classes V and VI to sign a form if they wanted their children to study under the Delhi-based board after they were sent up.
The school announced on Friday, after the annual results were declared, that all 650 students of Class V who had opted for the CBSE course would find a berth in the new wing.
But of the 500 students of Class VI whose parents had signed the form, only 208 have been selected.
“We are in the dark on what basis the students were selected for the CBSE course,” said the mother of a boy sent up to Class VII. She was among the 50-odd parents who held a demonstration on the school premises.
“The parents had been told that the selection would be made at random,” said Krishna Damani, a spokesperson for the school.
A notice issued by principal R. Sanyal Bhattacharjee on January 10 read: “The school reserves the right of selection without reference to the guardians... as the selection will depend on availability of seats.”
Some of the agitating parents later alleged that they had never been told that the selection would be at random.