The Congress state government in Karnataka (pop. 66 million) is in a catch-22 situation over the issue of shutting down government primary schools with rock-bottom enrolment. On June 1, the state’s Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI) issued a “merger” (read closure) circular announcing the merger of 2,959 government schools in 34 academic districts (including 98 in Mysuru district which hosts chief minister Siddaramaiah’s legislative assembly constituency) with less than ten enrolled students. But faced with an outcry from social activists, in less than a week’s time DPI withdrew the circular stating that “the government is yet to take a decision on the issue”.

Shockingly in the recently concluded academic year 2015-16, 534 government primaries recorded zero additional enrolment, while 13,000 primaries had fewer than 25 students on their muster rolls. This is hardly surprising, given that the state’s 45,654 government primary schools are notorious for abysmal infrastructure, poor learning outcomes, vernacular medium instruction, and chronic teacher absenteeism. With even bottom-of the-pyramid households spurning free-of-charge education and mid-day meals-providing government schools, DPI officials had shortlisted the 2,959 schools for “merger” to save taxpayers’ money from going down the drain. But this belated decision provoked orchestrated outrage from the usual suspects — Kannada language champions and Left academics.

Leading the attack is Dr. V.P. Niranjanaradhya, fellow at the Centre for Child and the Law at Bangalore’s National Law School of India University, who fears that the government is likely to close 22,170 schools by 2019-20. “By not doing anything to arrest the slide in the quality of education and improve infrastructure in government schools, the state is only providing parents more reasons to pull their kids out of these institutions and admit them to private ones,” writes Niranjanaradhya in Times of India (June 24).

Undoubtedly, it’s the state government’s consistent failure to upgrade quality of education dispensed in its 45,654 free-of-charge primaries which is forcing parents to enroll their children in fees-levying private schools. According to the latest Elementary Education in India published by the Delhi-based National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), 32.67 percent of government primary schools in the state don’t have a boundary wall, 86.8 percent don’t have computers and 50 percent lack playground facilities. Moreover, 32,000 posts of teachers are vacant in government primaries.

To these deficiencies add the state government’s two-decades old Kannada/mother tongue medium of instruction policy under which all government schools are obliged to teach classes I-V in the vernacular medium. With even the poorest of poor households now aware of the importance of English learning, it is hardly surprising there’s a mass exodus to private schools offering English medium education, even if of indifferent quality. According to the Annual Status of Education Report 2014, published by the well-known Mumbai-based NGO Pratham (estb. 1994), private school enrolments of children in the age group four-16 in rural Karnataka have steadily increased from 16 percent in 2006 to 25.5 percent in 2014.

Dr. A.S. Seetharamu, former professor of education at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, believes it’s advisable for government to “consolidate resources” and develop one model school in a cluster of villages rather than run hundreds of uninhabited primaries with high overheads including substantial Seventh Pay Commission salaries of underemployed teachers. “It is not a good idea to have too many ghost schools in close proximity. Ideally, there should be one large school serving a gram panchayat or cluster of five villages. If such schools are well-equipped with modern teaching aids, including computers and internet connectivity, they will be able to retain students. At the same time the government should ensure that no child should miss school because of logistics reasons. Therefore before closing ghost schools, proper plans should be drawn for students’ commute to larger schools,” says Seetharamu.

However, common sense solutions to make government schools attractive to parents requires the state to double its annual budget allocation of Rs.17,373 crore for the primary and secondary education department. But given deeply entrenched political apathy to improving teaching-learning standards in government primaries and the huge fiscal deficit of the state government, this is a remote prospect. Nor will under-performing government primaries be shut down because of resistance from teachers’ unions. Therefore it’s business as usual in the state’s 45,564 government primaries even as the exodus to private schools continues.

Jeswant M. (Bangalore)