Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru) Even as the reopening of primary-secondary schools on November 8 after 64-weeks of pandemic lockdown cheered the state’s 21,000 private unaided schools, a new circular of the state’s BJP government directing them to issue transfer certificates (TCs) to students within seven days has proved a dampener. On November 25, the education ministry issued a circular warning to private school managements, that if they don’t issue TCs to parents seeking to withdraw their children within the prescribed time frame, there will be “action”. “Should schools fail to issue a TC within one week after it is sought for by the parent, the aggrieved parent can lodge a complaint with the Block Education Officer. The Block Education Officers will then serve a notice to the schools and give them a seven-day period to revert to the parent. Should school managements fail to issue the TC despite this, BEOs have been authorized to lodge complaints against the head of the institute and the management of the school under section 106 (2) (b) of the Karnataka Education Act 1983,” states the circular. S.106 states that if a school’s governing council fails to deliver details of properties, records or accounts within time specified by a judicial magistrate, it could invite a punishment of imprisonment extending upto six months and a fine of Rs.2,000, or both. The backstory of this circular is that over the past 16 months of the lockdown, a large number of parents have not paid their children’s school fees citing job loss and economic hardship. Now after schools have reopened, instead of settling their pending dues, not a few of them have enrolled their children in other schools. But a TC issued by the transferor school is mandatory for a child to be admitted into the transferee school. Confronted with the prospect of huge unpaid debts, managements of private schools — especially budget private schools (BPS) — struggling to stay afloat, are balking at issuing TCs until parents settle their bills. However with parents associations pressurising the BJP government, on November 25, the state government succumbed. As it did earlier, on January 29, when it issued a directive to all private schools — including institutions affiliated with pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards — to collect only 70 percent of tuition (and no other) fees for the academic year ended April 2021. Budget private schools, which attract children from dysfunctional government schools neglected and ruined by state governments, have long been hate objects of politicians and bureaucrats, especially since they provide — or claim to provide — English medium education. This has never been accepted by state level politicians championing vernacular languages as the medium of instruction. Therefore, the prolonged lockdown of schools because of the Covid pandemic provided them a good opportunity to force mass closure of BPS. Despite loud calls, private schools were never accorded the status of MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) eligible for special and concessional bank loans to tide them over the pandemic…
