The Karnataka state government order of August 18 closing down a massive number of 1,416 privately-promoted primary schools with an aggregate enrollment of 2.73 lakh children in the six-14 age group, is symptomatic of all that’s wrong with post-independence India’s failed education system. It’s reflective of the reckless and negligent official mindset which has generated the world’s largest population of comprehensive illiterates and 40 million registered unemployed within a nation blessed with the contemporary world’s largest and most high-potential human resource pool. The offence of the schools which invoked the implacable wrath of Basvaraj Horatti, the state’s minister of primary and secondary education who has the full support of the Janata Dal (Secular)-BJP coalition government which was voted to power in Karnataka — hyped as the country’s knowledge hub — eight months ago, is trivial. Their promoter-managements are alleged to have violated a state government order stipulating that the medium of instruction in all junior primary schools (classes I-V) promoted after 1994 had to be in the state’s official language Kannada or the child’s mother tongue. They have committed the cardinal sin of providing education in English — universally acknowledged as the link language of India and the language of international business and diplomacy. Busy dodging a fusillade of corruption and graft charges which have numbered its days in office, the unstable coalition government in the state has suffered a massive disconnect with reality and the modest upward mobility aspirations of the neglected poor at the base of the iniquitous social pyramid. It is pertinent to note that the closure order is applicable only to down-market schools affiliated with the Karnataka State Education Board. It does not apply to upscale schools affiliated with the pan-India CBSE and ICSE boards, or to expensive five-star schools affiliated with foreign boards. This blatant class-based discrimination apart, several other questions should be answered by the evidently preoccupied state government before it reconfirms its closure order which is due to become operational after schools re-open on October 10 following the Dassera holidays. First, why wasn’t this allegedly grave misdemeanour detected and corrected during the past 12 years since the 1994 order was promulgated? Why is the choice of parents who quite obviously want their children to learn in English, being disregarded? Is the government aware that currently there is a global English-learning boom and that over 500 million Chinese students of all ages are enrolled for intensive English learning programmes and this development could well negate India’s English language advantage in the near future? In all civilized societies the paramountcy of child-centricism within the education system is a given. The callous disregard of this cardinal principle on the specious ground of promoting vernacular languages, suggests a deeper mischief. What is the connection of the so-called Kannada lobby with vernacular language education publishers looking for captive markets for their shabby, ill-written textbooks? This is an unexplored area which needs thorough investigation to correct this monstrous injustice. Thorny issue of collegiate tuition fees The death of Prof. H.S.…
