Govt. may close down 2,000 schools

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE, APRIL 7. The Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Mr. H. Vishwanath, on Saturday said the State Government would close down about 2,000 higher primary schools, which did not have adequate strength, in 195 education blocks in the next academic year. This would save Rs. 36 crores for the State exchequer.

The Minister was inaugurating the Mysore taluk-level academic convention of primary school teachers, jointly organised by the zilla panchayat and the Department of Public Instruction.

He said that this was being done to plug leaks in the Education Department. Stating that the student-teacher ratio in some of the schools was 20:4, he said the Government would close down these schools as they had become financially unviable. Each education block had at least 10 such schools.

Mr. Vishwanath said nearly 6,000 teachers, who worked in higher primary schools marked for closure, would be redeployed. The Government was keen on opening lower primary schools in all villages while adequate transport would be provided to students to go to higher primary schools in the vicinity of individual villages.

The Government would implement the recommendations of the Task Force on Education, headed by Dr. Raja Ramanna, and classes between first and fifth standard would be designated as primary schools as against the existing practice of designating the classes between first and fourth standard as primary schools. He said that a survey on school dropouts had identified 10 lakh such children in the State and claimed that ``Samudayadatta Shale'', a programme to popularise education, had reduced the dropout rate.

Regarding the one-day salary pledged by the primary school teachers' association, the Minister said that Rs. 6 crores would be collected annually and it would be utilised to strengthen infrastructure in schools. He urged teachers to offer constructive suggestions to improve education, instead of placing demands before the Government.

Stating that he was undertaking the exercise not to revolutionise education, but to reform it, he said education should become mass-based. The Government alone could not take the burden and it should be a joint effort by teachers, private institutions and students. Lamenting the controversies over the initiatives taken by him, he said these initiatives were taken only to improve the department.

Earlier, Swami Mukthidananda of Sri Ramakrishna Vidyashala was present. Mr. A.S. Guruswamy, MLA, presided.

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Section  : Southern States
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