Ahmedabad: Anand Niketan School in Shilaj has terminated its association with visiting consultant Munazza Shums and shut its canteen operations on a directive by the district education officer (DEO) following protests by parents and right-wing groups.One issue was a glass shard allegedly found in a student’s snack served in the school canteen. The other, which escalated beyond food safety concerns, was protesters objecting to the presence of “I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban” by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and “The Diary of Anne Frank” by Jewish Holocaust diarist Anne Frank. On the day the shard was found, Bajrang Dal activists registered their protest against the books. The next day, members of student outfit ABVP voiced their protests. The groups accused the school management of compelling students to read what they described as “books of other religions”.Another issue on which the school management was targeted was the alleged discontinuation of the morning prayer.Ahmedabad City DEO Rohit Chaudhary issued a notice to the school, fined it Rs 10,000 and ordered an inquiry. Documents submitted by the school in response clarified that Shums “was not a director or permanent administrator, as initially identified by authorities, but an alumna and external consultant engaged on a part-time basis”.Confirming the school’s compliance with official directions, Chaudhary said, “The school authorities have submitted their response and have terminated Shums on the issue of the controversial book by Malala Yousafzai. The canteen supervisor has also been dismissed, and canteen operations have been shut down. We have directed the school to refund the food service fees to parents who had paid. Although we instructed the administration to resume physical school starting today, they requested to restart only from Monday, citing safety and security concerns regarding the students.”Classes from Nursery to Class IX are currently being conducted online, while the school remains closed to students as management prepares to resume on-campus operations next week. According to a senior education official in Gandhinagar, discussions between the DEO’s office and the school’s trustees extended late into the night. “The decision to terminate Shums was not reached easily. Discussions between the DEO’s office and school trustees dragged on late into the night. There was intense friction over Shum’s continuing at school,” the official told TOI.In a letter to the state education minister, school chairman Kamal Mangal disputed reports suggesting Shums was functioning as the head of the institution. He described such claims as “incomplete and frivolous reports circulating that she is handling the profile of the head of school which are totally baseless”.Mangal said Shums, a US-educated liberal arts graduate and former Teach for India fellow, had been invited periodically to help train teachers and review curriculum practices. However, he stated that, “Moving forward we will not be inviting Shums for further consultations”. He also reiterated that Khyati Jani oversees primary and middle school academics, while Garima Singh heads the secondary and senior secondary sections.School staff, meanwhile, have privately expressed concern over the developments. One teacher said, “There was absolutely no fault on Munazza’s part. It wasn’t even her personal decision to include Malala’s autobiography — there were several other books in the library.”In its response to the DEO’s show-cause notice, the school maintained that the disputed titles were available only through an optional book club and library programme and were not part of the mandatory curriculum. The administration has also outlined a series of corrective measures, including initiating FSSAI compliance procedures for the canteen, appointing a new catering vendor, deploying three additional supervisors and designating Ravi Panchal as in-charge principal. Parents opting out of the meal programme are being offered canteen fees refund.
