A school within a 1-km radius in the neighbourhood where students can go, then those
schools will be consolidated into one central school
At a time when the final countdown for implementation of
Right to Education Act (RTE) in the state has started, this may sound a little odd.
The Karnataka government is planning to merge 2,500 government primary schools which
have less than 10 students with other schools.
These will be merged with neighbouring schools and students and teachers shifted.
According to RTE regulations, there should be a school for every child in a 1-km
radius.
If there is a problem of excess and there is a school within a 1-km radius in the
neighbourhood where students can go to, then we will consolidate the schools and
make them into one central school, said Tushar Girinath, commissioner for public
instruction.
Mapping for this is in the final stages and the final figure of how many schools
will be closed will be known after that. Karnataka has 2,557 schools (2,483 lower
primaries and 74 upper primaries) with single-digit enrolment in the academic year
2010-11.Of these, 734 schools have less than five students. The highest number of
such schools is in Hassan (326), Tumkur (249) and Chikmagalur (214).Even Bangalore
Urban has around 60 schools with fewer students. There are 3,783 teachers employed
in these schools.
Kumar Naik, principal secretary, primary and secondary education, explained: There
is no point in calling them schools; they don’t come under the popular imagination
of schools. Students are hardly getting the benefits of a school environment.
The idea is to move them to a real institution. We have sought for more clarifications.
We need to figure out transportation facilities. If all these fall into place, well
go ahead with the closure, Naik added.
Last year, 400 schools were temporarily shut down for the same reason. We will use
the spare infrastructure for other purposes. For instance, we are planning to shift
the out-of-school children programme to school campuses and have merged anganwadis
with the main schools, said Harsh Gupta, state director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
At the same time, in places where there are no educational institutions, the government
is planning to start 35 schools.
Expert Speak
I believe that if things go at this rate, in 10 years, 50% of government schools
will not have students. This is mainly due to the mushrooming of private schools
everywhere. What was a trend earlier in urban areas has now expanded to semi-urban
regions and smaller towns. But, sometimes, the quality of government schools is
better than these small private schools. Government school teachers are trained,
while most good teachers in private schools are only in the big ones. Government
schools should become more child-friendly, professional and give quality education.
Closing down is not the answer. If there are no neighbourhood schools, the dropout
numbers will only increase. We would be moving backward and not forward.
Courtesy: Times of India
