BENGALURU: With the Karnataka Budget for 2026–27 scheduled to be presented on March 6, education activist Dr Niranjanaradhya V P has written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, urging the government to substantially increase funding for the education sector and fill long-pending vacancies of school teachers under the Department of School Education and Literacy.
In his letter, Aradhya said, “Though Karnataka also accepted the Right to Education Act, 2009 as a constitutional right of a child, in the last 16 years the state has failed to implement it effectively due to unsatisfactory and inadequate investment. Providing the minimum basic facilities as stipulated in the Right to Education Act should be the priority of the government.”
He said Karnataka could draw lessons from Kerala’s Public Education System Revitalisation Programme and implement a similar initiative to ensure that every school meets RTE norms.
“These kind of programmes will help improve the quality of education in the state. The CM should allocate at least 10% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for education this year and announce a blue-map plan for full implementation of RTE for the next five years,” he added.
Highlighting the acute shortage of teachers in government schools, Aradhya urged the state to fill more than 62,500 vacant teaching posts across Karnataka.
He pointed out that guest teachers are engaged on a contractual basis without service security and are paid five to six times less than permanent teachers.
“This not only has a bad impact on the quality of education but also creates a large level of inequality,” he said.
Aradhya noted that the state has reached a situation where lakhs of children are failing the SSLC examination in the Kannada language.
“Due to lack of job security, they are not able to work with the school with long-term commitment. This instability also affects the quality of their teaching,” he said.
Calling for systemic reform in recruitment, he added, “Similar to the recruitment of IAS officers which happens every year, the recruitment of teachers should also be done every year.”