No govt. or Kannada medium school will be shutdown: Madhu Bangarappa
'Government and Kannada medium schools in the State will not be closed for any reason. We have deputed teachers and mid-day meals workers in schools with zero admission to other schools. If students enroll, we will restart those schools,' said the Minister.
During an interaction with The Hindu, he said that there were many schools in the State where only one student was enrolled, which were also not closed. 'We have not closed any Kannada medium schools and have emphasised on starting bilingual classes,' he said.
Mr. Bangarappa said that steps have been taken to open school clusters on the model of Karnataka Public Schools (KPS). 'There are about 308 KPS schools across the state, and there is a huge demand for these schools from students and parents. In this context, it has also been considered to open school clusters and provide free transport facilities to students,' he said.
Bilingual schools
Mr. Bangarappa further said that in 2023, the State government started 1000 bilingual schools, and they were such a big success that the State Budget of 2025-26 announced the setting up of another 4000 bilingual schools and that they were already sanctioned.
'To provide quality English education in government schools, the English Medium Teacher Induction Program (EMTIP) is being provided to teachers of classes 1 to 4, in association with Azim Premji Foundation, and 20,000 teachers have already been trained in English. It ensures access to English language education for students of all sections of society. And, Spoken English classes are being conducted for students from classes 1 to 8 in all government schools. Modules have been prepared for each class, and KPS teachers have been trained at Regional Institute of English (RIE). So far 38,56,826 students benefited from this,' he said.
KG classes
The minister further said that the LKG and UK classes started in government schools were a big success. 'We have started LKG-UKG classes in 5000 government schools across the State this year, and the response has been great,' he said, adding that the lack of LKG-UG classes in government schools was pushing parents to admit their children in private schools.
'The Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB) in Kalyana Karnataka established 1,008 pre-primary schools last year, almost towards the beginning of the admission season. In just 4 days, 40,000 children got admissions into these schools,' he said.
CSR funds not been collected at the expected level
Mr. Bangarappa said that the plan to start two model schools in every gram panchayat with the help of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds by corporate companies was not successful. 'We had a plan to collect around ₹2,500 crore CSR fund to build 500 model schools across the State. But, companies in the Bengaluru region are not coming forward to build schools in remote villages. Therefore, we have started a project called Our School-Our Responsibility and have given the responsibility to the Deputy Commissioners and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Zilla Panchayat of the respective districts to contact the companies under their jurisdiction and obtain CSR funds and start model schools,' he said.
Teachers recruitment
Speaking about the teachers' recruitment, Mr. Bangarappa said that the Chief Minister had announced to recruit 10,267 teachers this year. In addition, the government has approved the filling of 5,000 teacher posts in aided schools and 800 lecturer posts in Government Pre-University Colleges, he added and said the recruitment process will begin as soon as internal reservation among Scheduled Castes is finalised.
Fostering constitutional values
The Minister said around 1.04 crore students of government, aided, and unaided schools were now reading the Constitution's preamble daily, helping in instilling in them constitutional values. He further said the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL) is observing the Gandhi Bharath year through special initiatives to commemorate the centenary of the 1924 Congress session in Belagavi. 'All textbooks have a logo saying Gandhi Bharath on its cover page and seven social sins, written by Mahatma Gandhi on the backside,' he said.
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