Page 22 - EducationWorld December 2022

Education News

on PGI reflects its relative superiority 6 percent have an internet
because other states have been more connection, the budget-
hard hit by the pandemic. Therefore ary allocation for public
while PGI, which stimulates state education (Rs.32,018 crore
governments to compete to improve in 2022-23) has dropped
their school systems, is a commend- to 1.69 percent of GSDP
able initiative, its conclusions call for (gross state domestic
introspection rather than celebration. product) from 1.72 percent
Special Correspondent (Mumbai) in 2021-22. This despite
the urgency to make good
KARNATAKA the learning loss of discon-
Education neglect nected students of govern-
ment schools which were
spanner Government school in Karnataka: alarming neglect two years during the Covid
locked down for almost
pandemic era.
ith the tempo for state clergy of forced religious conversion nsurprisingly, there’s rising pub-
legislative assembly elec- to consolidate the majority Hindu Ulic anger against the low priority
Wtions scheduled for next vote, recently released data reveal- being accorded by the state’s BJP
May building up, Karnataka’s ruling ing alarming neglect of primary- government to education and human
BJP government is pulling out all secondary education in the state may resource development.
stops to ensure that it is returned to throw a spanner in the BJP’s election “In 2012, the Supreme Court had
power in this southern state which strategy. directed that every school should
is critical for the BJP high command According to the latest United be equipped with adequate toilets
— now in its second term at the District Information System for Edu- with running water. At that time the
Centre — to make a breakthrough in cation (UDISE) 2022-23, 2.6 percent court had observed that denial of
peninsular India. of Karnataka’s 76,905 schools do toilet facilities to children violates
Educationally and industri- not have functional toilets for girl their right to free and compulsory
ally more advanced and with good children and 1,532 don’t have sepa- education guaranteed under Article
records of religious tolerance and rate toilets for girls. Moreover, 5,047 21-A of the Constitution. Making this
harmony, the five states of southern schools (6.5 percent) don’t have basic provision is not a herculean
India have proved to be less suscep- functional toilets for boys. In 328 task. Local panchayat governments
tible than the populous Hindi belt schools there are no toilets at all. should be directed to identify schools
BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Surprisingly even though Benga- lacking basic infrastructure and ar-
Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states luru, the state’s admin capital, is the range for government funding. The
to the anti-Muslim and Christian hub of the ICT (information com- latest UDISE data are a shocking
electoral rhetoric of the BJP/RSS munication technologies) industry, indictment of continued government
sangh parivar leadership. Even only 49 percent of schools and (34 negligence and duty of care towards
though it’s been ruling in Karnataka percent of government schools) are vulnerable children,” says Dr. A.S.
(pop.63 million) since 2019, this equipped with functional comput- Seetharamu, former professor of
incumbency was engineered by mass ers and 24.84 percent (and only 6 education at the Institute of Social &
defections from the Congress party percent of government schools) are Economic Change, Bengaluru.
and Janata Dal (S) rather than vic- connected with the internet. Adds Nagasimha G. Rao, direc-
tory in the assembly election of 2018. And although Karnataka has a tor of Child Rights Trust, a Bengal-
But even as the state govern- good record of high quality educa- uru-based NGO: “Under s.28 of the
ment’s leadership is going all out tion, in the Performance Grading RTE Act, 2009, every school has to
to arouse sub-nationalist Kannada Index of the Union ministry of edu- be managed by a School Develop-
pride by resurrecting a border dis- cation (2022), its rank has slid to #14 ment and Monitoring Committee
pute with Maharashtra, insisting on countrywide. In terms of quality of (SDMC) in which parents are the
Kannada as the medium of education infrastructure in government schools majority. But the state government
across the education spectrum, and it is ranked #28 countrywide. has made no attempt to constitute
demonising the state’s Muslim and Meanwhile despite the severe loss SDMCs with the few which have
Christian communities by banning of learning experienced by 5 mil- been established dominated by local
wearing of the hijab in education lion children in the state’s 49,791 politicians. Principals should be
institutions and accusing Christian government schools, of whom a mere empowered to constitute SDMCs as

22 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2022