Diocese, educational department blamed for teacher’s death by suicide

By George Kommattam

Kozhikode, Feb 20, 2025: A schoolteacher’s death by suicide in Kerala has raised questions about the functioning of Church-managed aided schools in the southern Indian state.

On February 19, Aleena Benny was found dead in her residence at Kattipara, a parish under the diocese of Thamarassery, 42 km northeast of Kozhikode town.

The 29-year-old Catholic woman recently joined St. Joseph’s Lower Primary School in Kodanchery, 13 km southeast of Kattipara. Earlier, she had worked five years at Nazareth L P School Kattipara. Both schools are under the diocese’s Corporate Educational Agency.

The teacher’s father, Benny Valavananickal, has alleged that the woman was under severe emotional and financial distress as she had received neither the permanent appointment letter nor salary for all these years.

He also alleged that his daughter was forced to sign an affidavit rescinding her right to claim her salary and other benefits. Valavananickal told media persons that his daughter had paid 1.3 million rupees for the job, but received no permanent appointment order or salary.

However, the diocesan agency on February 20 dismissed the allegations as baseless rumors spread by vested interests to discredit aided schools in Kerala.

A three-page statement from the agency says it is the state government’s educational department that gives appointment letters, salaries and other benefits to the aided school teachers. The school management, on its part, had taken all legal, appropriate and timely actions in Aleena Benny’s case, the statement asserts.

It circulated the copy of the appointment as a probationary teacher it issued to Aleena on July 22, 2021.

The agency’s statement in Malayalam also says the appointments of several teachers like the deceased woman working in aided schools have been caught in red tape for years.

It asserted that no donation was taken for the appointment.

Toeing the Church, the Headmasters and Principals Forum, which is under the agency, blames the media for publishing “disgusting news” without verifying facts.

A statement addressed to “friends,” the forum says appointments of several teachers in the aided sector like Aleena Benny are caught in unpredictable and unexpected “technical snags.”

“When her first appointment met with a technical issue, the management tried to appoint her to another vacant seat that had no problem. This application is still awaiting the educational officer’s approval,” the forum explains.

The Catholic Teachers Guild has also issued a statement attributing the woman’s death to the education department authorities’ negligence and mismanagement.

The guild statement clarified that Aleena Benny had submitted her application for permanent appointment approval to the Assistant Education Officer of Thamarassery in 2021. However, due to technical obstacles, including reservations for persons with disabilities, her appointment was not approved.

Such arguments failed to convince people such as Sebastian Vaippukattil, a retired superintendent of the Department of Education.

” I know of nearly 40 cases like this in the diocese’s corporate management schools. It is the sheer negligence of the corporate management and the failure of the education department in strictly enforcing the rules that has taken the life of a teacher,” Vaippukattil told Matters India February 20.

He said he had met the corporate manager regarding a similar case a few months back. “But the corporate manager was reluctant to hear our arguments, and the appointment is still not confirmed.”

Vaippukattil says appointment in aided schools has become a lucrative business. “They take money for teaching posts but seldom issue receipts. These schools and colleges were built by our forefathers. Taking money from their children for appointments is not fair,” he added.

Majority of Catholics in the diocese are descendants of those who migrated to the region from central Kerala during 1930-1960.

“Either the Church should act, or the government should take corrective steps. There is no transparency in their dealings. The corporate management is doing injustice to teachers. Everybody knows it, but we are all afraid to raise our voices against the Church,” Vaippukattil bemoaned.

Father Aji Puthiyaparambil, a former priest of the Thamarassery diocese, took to social media to express his anguish over the woman ‘s death.

“If we are unmoved after hearing that someone has given a bribe of 13 lakh [1.3 million] rupees for a teacher’s post in a Church-managed school, something has gone terribly wrong with our Christian conscience,” said the priest who left the diocese in May 2013 to launch a crusade against corruption in the Church.

Similarly, “our humanity is dead, when we do nothing about a priest who forcibly makes a teacher to sign an affidavit stating she had never worked in his school,” Father Puthiyaparambil said.

He says thousands of unpaid teachers like Aleena suffer, but neither the government nor society shows compassion to “these unfortunate souls.”

The agency, established in 1987, has the local bishop as its patron and the corporate manager, who is always a priest, as its overseer.

Headquartered in Thamarassery, it manages 72 schools, ranging from primary to higher secondary, in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts.

It claims to provide education to all, irrespective of caste or creed, and promotes academics, sports, and extracurricular activities.