Education may begin at home, but it isn’t the only place to rely on through childhood. It includes the development of social and life skills—and schools play a large part in it. Unfortunately, in Karnataka, the pathetic statistics on government schools present a disturbing picture. At least 6,158 government schools where 1.38 lakh students are enrolled in all have just one teacher each, while 530 schools have no students though they have 358 teachers. This means some state schools are defunct, some have very few teachers, and some have excess teachers but no enrolment.
That is not all. What aggravates the situation is the practice of nudging out students who are not academically sound as the schools eye their own reputation while aiming at 100 per cent pass rates, especially at the secondary school board level. In many schools, teachers restrict themselves to teaching only Kannada and/or social studies while leaving out core subjects like mathematics and science—again stressing higher marks. It’s painfully unfortunate that this is the plight of education at a time when experts have been pushing to train schoolchildren in life skills and fortifying them to face ups and downs positively; where failures—including scoring lower marks—need to be taken as lessons to excel rather than as a reason to withdraw into a shell—or in some tragic cases, from life itself.
There’s a flaw in the system that needs to be urgently and effectively addressed. The state government has to wake up and stop its education system from obstructing children’s learning skills in a crucial phase of their lives. There is a pressing need to make the school teaching profession attractive to achieve the ideal expert-recommended student-to-teacher ratio of 18:1 for more individualised attention to students. Private companies have to be roped in to channelise corporate social responsibility funds to beef up salary packages for school teachers in government schools. The government needs to work with a missionary zeal to identify dedicated teachers for every subject to make learning an appealing experience for children—teachers who stress learning and understanding life skills and concepts, and not merely on scoring marks for institutional reputation. It’s imperative that the government fixes the system.