Bengaluru: Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Tanveer Sait said the Education Department has set a deadline of three months for preschools and playschools across Karnataka to register with it, failing which they will be deemed illegal and face action.

Tanveer Sait said the government was also planning to amend the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, to bring various forms of preschools under its ambit to ensure safety of children.

Asked how all institutions that take children aged under six — including daycare centres and creches — can come within the ambit of the Act since many of them are not educational in nature, the minister said that it was possible since it also subsumes the question of the protection of child rights. He said that fee regulation will also be taken up seriously considering some of them were charging exorbitant sums.

While there was pressure to allow individuals to register preschools and playschools since many were doing it as a hobby, it could only be a collective responsibility through a trust or a society, the minister said.