Bengaluru: The government in a major decision has decided not to close the schools with a student strength of less than 10 students, instead will conduct a survey to assess the real ground situation before enforcing the closure in the future.
Briefing news reporters in Bengaluru, the new education minister Tanveer Sait said, “There are more than 4000 schools with student strength of 10 in each school. Earlier the decision of school closure was taken by the director of Public Instruction, not by the government. However, it has been decided to temporarily hold back that decision”.
“Under a program titled “Shikshana Kirana” in collaboration with Infosys foundation, the students’ performance of Class 1 to 10 will be assessed on a periodic basis and almost 45000 students have registered their names to be a part of the program. Teaching fraternity has been trained in this regard which also helps to bring back school drop-outs,” he said.
“Around 86000 students have been admitted to various private schools under RTE category during the current academic year in two phases and 13000 seats are still lying vacant. Jurisdictional deputy commissioners will take a final call on the remaining seats as there are restrictions about not enrolling students’ staying beyond a radius of 1 km from the school as per RTE guidelines,” he confirmed.
“Teachers’ transfers will go on as usual depending on the teacher student ratio where new teachers will be inducted in schools, where there are more students and the extra teachers will be transferred from schools, which have less numbers of students,” he clarified after deciding not to close schools for now with less than 10 students.
Clarifying about the delay in distribution of uniforms Tanveer Sait said, “Uniforms will be distributed in all schools by July as 80% of uniforms have been distributed till now. The remaining 20% mainly to students of Bengaluru Rural, Davanagere, Chitradurga and Mysuru divisions will be given by July”.
Students and their parents and guardians can breathe easy for now but teachers of schools where the student strength is more will undergo sleepless nights till they get their transfer orders.
