Schools give up student excursions

Chennai: Educational tours and excursions for private school students have become a thing of the past with several private schools in the state doing away with the practice. Schools cite numerous regulations laid down by the state and fees fixed by the government as reasons for discontinuing the practice.

R. Sivaraman, a parent, lamented that the private school in which his child studies class 5 does not take students out on educational tours and excursions.

“In the good old days, we used to go to places like the post office and banks on educational tours and spots like Mahabalipuram on excursions. This was a good learning experience for us, but today, the situation is different: private schools refuse to take children on these trips,” he said.

Pointing out that not only private schools but also numerous government schools do not take students on educational tours, eminent academician and school education expert, Dr S.S. Rajagopalan, said decades ago, the state government had allocated funds for schools to take students on educational tours, but today, the amount remains the same. This has made it impossible for schools to take students out on excursions.

The administrator of a private school confirmed that they had stopped taking children on excursions as no teacher comes forward to accompany the students, with government putting the teacher behind bars if anything happened to the children.

“Recently, a government school headmaster was arrested when the minivan in which students went for an excursion overturned.  He was arrested for no fault of his. When we have incidents like this happening, we don’t want to take the risk. So, we have stopped taking out excursions,” the administrator explained.