Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru)

KPMTCC protest. D. Shashi Kumar (centre)

Unable or unwilling to improve infrastructure and/or learning outcomes in the state’s 49,679 government schools, officials of Karnataka’s education ministry have continuously targeted the state’s 19,650 private schools for alleged violation of rules and regulations under a plethora of Acts of Parliament (RTE Act, 2009, NEP 2020) and of state government circulars and orders.

This has forced private schools to initiate legal action from time to time. On August 6, 11 private unaided/independent schools’ associations grouped under the banner of Karnataka Private School Managements, Teaching & Non-Teaching Staff Coordination Committee (KPMTCC) announced that August 15 would be observed as ‘Black Independence Day’ to protest against “open, continuous and uninterrupted” harassment of private unaided schools by various government departments especially of the education ministry. KPMTCC alleged that numerous government departments — fire safety, public works, revenue, child rights, and police — have been continuously interrupting their operations by demanding bribes for alleged infringements of the law and by way of demanding title, licences and a plethora of documents.

Confronted with the prospect of severe embarrassment to the state’s one-year-old Congress government, education minister Madhu Bangarappa — famously described as MIA (missing in action) minister — called a three-hour meeting with KPMTCC on August 13, smoothing their representatives’ ruffled feathers after which the protest was called off. But not without the association presenting the minister with a 14-point memorandum detailing the grievances of private unaided schools. On condition that KPMTCC called off its protest and directed member schools to celebrate Independence Day with the usual pomp and ceremony, the minister assured the committee that a nodal officer appointed by the education ministry will coordinate with KPMTCC president C. Puttanna to discuss and resolve private schools grievances. With the agitation called off, member schools observed Independence Day as usual.

The memorandum presented to the minister lists 14 major grievances of private unaided (financially independent) schools which have piled up over the years. Among them: different fire safety, minimum infrastructure, land conversion and other rules for schools established before 2018 when the state government issued a general circular laying down norms for newly-promoted private schools.

A major demand of KPMTCC is for 620 private unaided schools declared “illegal” for having additional ‘sections’ than permitted in February 2023, to be regularised. The memorandum also demanded that the syllabus of schools affiliated with the Karnataka state board be brought on a par with the CBSE and CISCE, and textbooks also be revised, to match standards of these two national boards. Another major demand in the 14-point memorandum is that the accreditation renewal period be restored to once in ten years instead of annually, to prevent excessive paper work and demand for illegal gratification (described as “office expenses”) which has become normative.

In an unexplained about-turn, since 2022 the education ministry has been demanding that private schools renew their accreditation annually instead of every ten years. “This is very cumbersome for schools because of the heavy paper work involved and recurring demand for bribes. Similarly, our demand is that submission of PWD, land conversion, fire safety and school infrastructure clearances be restored to every ten years as before. All these demands are in consonance with high court and Supreme Court orders. But junior government officials don’t pay any heed to court verdicts and follow archaic circulars issued by the state government. Incidentally the promised nodal officer is yet to be appointed,” says D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary of KPMTCC.

To independent observers of Karnataka’s K-12 education scene, it’s plainly evident that education ministry officials are expending disproportionate time in monitoring and regulating private schools instead of monitoring, regulating and upgrading the state’s 46,679 government schools defined by crumbling buildings, multi-grade teaching, rife corporal punishment and chronic teacher truancy.

State education ministry officials who have earned a notorious reputation for drafting loosely-worded legislation with vast discretionary power vested in the bureaucracy to enable shakedown of private schools, seem untroubled that government schools are experiencing flight of children to the state’s multiplying number of budget private schools.