-Reshma Ravishanker

Over 60,000 students did not take admissions into private schools where they had previously enrolled themselves, resulting in a loss of Rs.41.34 crore for the academic year 2020-21, reveals a survey conducted in 250 private schools across Karnataka.

The Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) has submitted data on student enrolments and financial losses suffered by schools mostly budget private schools in 2020-21 to the Karnataka High Court on July 16. Data was gathered through an internal survey conducted in 250 member schools that on an average collect fees between Rs 10,000 to Rs 40,000 per student per year .

The survey found that the student strength in these schools during the academic year 2019-20 was 1,85,933 and the number of students who enrolled for 2020-21 was a mere 1,25,839. Schools fear that these students might have stayed out of the education system and skipped the academic year as their enrolment is not reported in other member schools either.

Addressing a press conference on July 17, D Shashi Kumar, general secretary, KAMS said that this data reflects the huge financial loss incurred by its 3,655 member schools. KAMS estimates the fee arrears for the academic year 2020-21 is Rs 63.45 crore. Of the 1.25 lakh students who were admitted in the surveyed schools, only 45 % parents paid 100 % fees while 17 % paid 70 % and 9 % parents paid less than 25 % of the school fee.

“It is shocking that a huge number of students have not enrolled in schools last year. We fear that these students might be victims of child labor or child marriage,” said Shashi Kumar.

Kumar added that the data gathered by the department of primary and secondary education is obtained by cluster resource persons from the department knocking on the doors of private schools, forcing them to show false student admissions on paper. “For the year 2020-21, a lot of schools agreed and put data on paper. This academic year, a lot of them have refused and the dip in admissions is bound to be far worse. Mass promotion without exams has led to forged data on the Students Attendance Tracking System,” he said.

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