Although Karnataka’s congress government seems blissfully unaware, the annual scramble of middle class parents to secure admission for their children into private English-medium schools has become more intense with every passing year. On December 6, a software engineer immolated himself after he was cheated of Rs.1.25 lakh by a middleman who promised to secure a seat for his seven-year-old son in an upscale private school in Bangalore. Ritesh Kumar (35) had paid Rs.2.5 lakh to the middleman, who returned only half the money after all his efforts to discharge his promise failed. 

With six months still to go for the next academic year to begin — even as teachers outnumber students in several free-of-charge government primaries and where seats are going abegging — the frenzy for admission into private primaries especially in Bangalore (aka Bengaluru), the admin capital of Karnataka (pop.63 million), has already begun. While uber-rich parents have the option of enrolling their children in international schools charging Rs.3-5 lakh per year, the great majority of middle class citizens are driven to desperation in their efforts to get their children into the city’s vintage English medium schools which charge Rs.1-3 lakh.

From standing in serpentine queues for application forms, preparing their toddlers for admission interviews (conducted by most schools despite an RTE Act ban) to using influence with politicians and bureaucrats, parents have a harrowing time getting their offspring admitted into private schools, which they rightly believe will secure their children’s future. The season is also stressful for principals, who go incommunicado to avoid pressure from powerful politicians and babus to make irregular admissions. 

Year on year, the government’s education department announces an admission calendar starting in March for the state’s 19,593 private unaided K-12 schools. But this calendar is openly flouted with several schools closing admissions as early as January. “We have to stand in long queues from midnight to collect application forms as they are distributed only for a day, with no understanding of the school’s admission criteria. The form requires submission of several annexures such as attested birth certificate, baptism certificate, etc which is also a tedious process. The only readily available admission is in government schools, which are in a shambles and avoided by the middle class,” says Anju J, a postgraduate in social work and mother of a three-year-old vying for a convent school admission in the city’s north-eastern suburbs. 

Despite the rising desperation of the garden city’s fast-expanding middle class for private primary-secondary education, Karnataka’s governments irrespective of political colour, have never favoured promotion of much-needed greenfield private schools. Premier national schools such as DPS and highly-regarded institutions such as National Public School, New Horizon, the Gear Innovative School and Inventure Academy have axed expansion plans, disheartened by bureaucratic hassles, red tape and corruption. 

“A greenfield school promoter requires 70-90 permissions from several departments including the women and child welfare, police, transport ministry, municipal corporation and department of public instruction. Moreover, if the promoter is very persistent, the permission granted is only to start a school in a phased manner. And, once a school is set up, every little fault, perceived or actual, comes with a threat of closure or arrest. Who would want to set up a school with constant fear of harassment and over-monitoring? Managing a school or choosing teaching as a career isn’t the respectable vocation it was,” says Nooraine Fazal, an alumna of Boston University, former Reuters manager in Asia-Pacific region and co-founder of the top-ranked Inventure Academy, Bangalore (estb.2005). 

Adds M. Srinivasan, founder-chairman of Bangalore’s Gear Innovative International School (estb. 1995) and president of Managements of Independent CBSE Schools’ Association of Karnataka which has a membership of 130 schools statewide: “An investment of Rs.25-30 crore is required to set up a school in Bangalore, of which Rs.5-10 crore goes just to acquire land. Another Rs.10-15 crore goes into building the infrastructure, which is the only amount that can be acquired through a bank loan. Later, constant interference and harassment in the form of inspections by education department officials makes it very difficult to run a school. The state government has to accept that education provided by private players is socially important for which there’s rising public demand. Rules and regulations have to be meaningful and in the public interest rather than a means to harass and extract money.”

With growing government interference with the autonomy of private (financially independent) schools — tuition fees regulation and imposition of Kannada as a compulsory language in all schools regardless of exam board affiliation in the offing — education entrepreneurs and idealists are losing heart about promoting greenfield schools in Karnataka, hitherto renowned for its excellent private English-medium K-12 schools. This will inevitably translate into a widening demand-supply chasm with the annual scramble for admissions becoming more intense in fast-growing Bangalore, where bribery and suicides are set to become routine.

Sruthy Susan Ullas (Bangalore)