BENGALURU: Primary and Secondary Education minister N Mahesh on Thursday took a U-turn stating that there was no proposal before the state government to merge government schools with low student strength. He also went a step ahead saying that the budget book carrying that announcement made in the budget speech by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, was erroneously printed.
“There is no such proposal before the state primary and secondary education department or before the state government to merge schools with low students enrolment. This was wrongly printed in the budget book,” he said. He was speaking to reporters after a review meeting of the department. Meanwhile, the minister also blamed the media for the school merger issue. “This is all a creation by the media and there is no such proposal before us,” he said.
In the budget presented by Kumaraswamy, over 28,000 government and aided schools having lesser student enrolment — some in single digits — were to be merged with other schools within 3 km radius with healthier enrolment figures. The budget presented by the CM clearly said these schools will be merged with 8,000 schools located nearby. However, following opposition from academic, the CM said he will not do it in a hurry.
Meanwhile, the data provided for the budget itself created a controversy wherein it was found that no such information was available with the department and nobody knew how it made its entry into the budget copy. Subsequently, even the principal secretary of the department clarified that the particular paragraph had been misinterpreted in the budget.
MINISTER HAS NO ANSWERS
Although the minister is blaming the media while saying that no such proposal was before the department, one question arises: Why has the department gathered district-wise data of schools having less student enrolment with a list of 14,000 such schools? While on the one hand, the minister says it was wrongly printed in the budget book, he seems to have no clue who gave that data to the Finance Department and to the Chief Minister’s Office. Also, no action has been initiated against those officers. Soon after taking charge of the primary and secondary education portfolio, the first thing N Mahesh said was about merging of such schools. This created a controversy and was criticised by academics and other stakeholders. Later, the CM himself had said the proposal has been put off.