Pupil expelled from school for suffering epileptic seizures

9-Years Old Aparna Shyam

An Indian girl has been expelled from an Ajman school for suffering epileptic seizures in the classroom.

Aparna Shyam, 9, suffered a fit last month on her fifth day at the East Point Indian International School, formerly the Al Ahlam Indian Private School.

She was, however, declared fit to resume normal schooling after spending three days under observation at a Dubai hospital. The father claims that the school chose to ignore the fitness certificate issued by Aparna’s long-time doctor and he was instead told to take Aparna to another school.

History of epilepsy

"I showed the principal the certificate and documents that prove Aparna is fit and fine even though she has a history of epilepsy. We mentioned this in our application form during admission but the principal was not ready to have any of it," says Shyam Nair, the father.

"He not only maintains we hid Aparna’s condition in the application form but also rejects all medical reports that prove she can have a normal school life," says Nair, 38.

When XPRESS contacted the school, principal Abdul Gafoor Thayyil said: "This child is suffering from serious epilepsy which needs immediate medical assistance and better medical aided support. The school’s medical staff advised me to refer this matter to the Ministry of Education (MoE), Ajman and on their directive, we requested the parent to shift the child to a school near the girl’s residence and a hospital that can be reached immediately," he added.

"We have discussed this issue with the management and decided to refund the fees to the parent," Gafoor said.

An immediate comment from the Ministry of Education wasn’t available. The child has since managed to secure admission in the Sharjah school she had attended last academic session.