Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News- 2013-05-08

The principal and teachers at Park Primary School in Lenasia have taken a stand against disrespectful parents of pupils at the school.

Shaukat Khan, the principal of Park Primary said that as educators they are taking a stand against parents that are absolutely rude, arrogant and disrespectful towards them.

He reiterates that although he hasn’t been on the receiving end of the bad attitudes by parents, his teachers were mostly affected. “We basically making a stand to say guys, parents you out there give us the respect we rightfully deserve. And I think we're not only making a stand for Park Primary School but for educators at large be that in a school, in a madrassah, in the churches which ever places we’re saying," said Khan.

“I think we deserve respect and it’s about time parent’s show us that respect,” added Khan.

Khan said the placard demonstration was sparked by series of events but cited a parent’s day incident. He said the school had parent’s day about 3 weeks ago and of the 1100 parents that were supposed to have attended they had an attendance close to about 75%.

“What we had done as a school is write letters to the parents to indicate to them our disappointment that they did not attend the parent’s day. And we wanted them to furnish or forward reasons to us as to why they did not attend,” said Khan.

Khan emphasizes that some of the parents were absolutely respectful by providing legitimate reasons for not attending. However he says that some other parents were totally disrespectful and made a lot of derogatory remarks that really hurt the educators. “We were absolutely disgusted at the attitude of these parents in the kind of negative comments that they had directed towards educators, “said Khan.  

“We know how much effort we put in to this school and if we didn’t put in so much effort into the school, I don’t think we’ll have the numbers that you *saw that was there when our admission process started. But that’s a separate event all together,” said Khan.

*Radio Islam reported live from Park Primary School on the day for 2014 admissions.