BENGALURU: Karnataka State Committee of All India Save Education Committee (AISEC) condemned the the state government’s alleged plan to shut down 6,000 government schools, citing poor enrolment ratio.
In a media statement on Thursday, AISEC President Allamaprabhu Bettaduru said, “The School Reform Commission had submitted a proposal to the previous BJP government to merge schools with less than ten children with nearby schools, giving an illogical pretext that they are not able to provide quality education to them.
Despite opposition since its submission, the government is now pushing ahead with school closures. If this plan goes through, over 25 % of government schools in the state will shut down, impacting the future of more than 50,000 children,” he warned
He further questioned the government’s claim that it would arrange transport for students from remote villages. “When families are already struggling with unemployment and financial difficulties, how can they afford to send their children to distant places? This is nothing but an excuse to close the schools”, Bettaduru alleged.
“If the state government is really interested in saving the public education system and government schools, then they should find the root cause of poor enrolment in these schools and take steps to address them. Providing universal education is the primary duty of the government and should not be viewed through a profit-and-loss lens,” he said.
Bettaduru also accused the state government of treating education as a burden, calling it a a green signal for the privatisation of education.
He urged the state to allocate 10% of its budget to save government schools and colleges, abolish unscientific methods of teaching in government schools, introduce time-tested teaching methods and fill adequate teaching and non-teaching posts.