BENGALURU: Despite giving uniforms, food and shoes, government schools are seeing a dip in the number of students year after year, said Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Madhu Bangarappa in the Legislative Council on Monday, expressing his helplessness. Accepting that government schools do face shortcomings, he said many reforms have been brought in, and urged students to return to government schools.
Replying to BJP MLC Nirani Hanumant Rudrappa, he said the enrolment of children in Kannada schools dropped by 11.20% in the last three years and it is not because of opening of Karnataka Public Schools (KPS). It is because of parents’ obsession with English medium schools, their attraction to national curriculum and an increase in the number of private schools.
He said the government will come up with a campaign to increase enrolment and urged public representatives to join hands to bring children to government schools in their respective constituencies.
To increase enrolment, bilingual medium classes have been started from Classes 1 to 5, and select government schools that have enough space and good enrolment are being upgraded to KPS, providing education from pre-primary till pre-university, he said.
15k teachers to be hired, trained in English: Min
When Rudrappa demanded that a KPS be started in every gram panchayat, Bangarappa said they are ready to do it.
Educationist VN Rajashekar said, “First, let the government prioritise recruiting teachers in government schools and then focus on providing quality infrastructure. The government provides only Rs 10,000 to 15,000 per year for maintenance of lower primary schools, Rs 20,000 for higher primary schools and Rs 22,000 to 25,000 for high schools.
This is too low to keep the schools clean and take up repair work. Why will children come to schools where there are no teachers and buildings are in a bad shape?” Saying ‘schools without teachers’ is akin to ‘temples without priests to perform pooja’, Bangarappa said teachers are being recruited.
Guest teachers were hired in the past and permanent teachers are being recruited now, he said, responding to a question by BJP MLC HS Gopinath. He said the enrolment of students in some government schools has been satisfactory in recent times, but there is a shortage of teachers there. Steps are being taken to recruit 15,000 teachers, he added.
One teacher for 320 students
BJP MLC Vivekananda said in the Council that in schools following the national curriculum -- ICSE and CBSE, there is one teacher for every 45 children. But government schools have one teacher for 320 students. This has affected the quality of education. Madhu Bangarappa said all the 320 students are not together in the same class and they are split into separate sections. The request to increase the ratio would be examined, he added.
