Karnataka’s School Adoption Plan Criticized by Educationists as Government Abandoning Responsibility, ETEducation

Bengaluru: The state goverment’s proposal to involve private schools in adopting government schools to improve enrolment, learning outcomes and student retention has drawn criticism from educationists, parents’ groups and teachers’ representatives.Earlier, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar urged private school managements to take up government schools and contribute to their development. He suggested that private schools could provide teachers, school buses, laboratory equipment and computers.“If you cannot spend Rs 5-10 crore on constructing buildings, depute your skilled teachers to govt schools. Provide 10 teachers from your school and pay their salaries. Do not sell off unused private school buses; give them to govt schools,” he said.However, educationists questioned the rationale behind the proposal, arguing that government cannot outsource its responsibility to provide quality public education through school-adoption arrangements. “The state cannot sign away its constitutional responsibility through a school-adoption MoU. Article 21A and the Right to Education Act, 2009, place a binding obligation on govt to ensure free, compulsory and quality elementary education. Any arrangement that uses ‘adoption’ to surrender public control or dilute that obligation is an abdication of constitutional duty,” said Development Educationist Niranjanaradhya VP.He also flagged a potential conflict of interest if private school operators or corporate entities are allowed to manage government schools while remaining subject to regulation by the education department. He called for transparency in the proposed MoUs, protection of public ownership and adequate govt funding.Shivakumar’s comments on teacher accountability, along with remarks by his daughter on the efficiency of govt school teachers, also drew objections from teachers’ representatives.A statement signed by at least 12 academicians, including A Murigeppa, State President of the Save Public Education Committee, accused government of unfairly blaming teachers for the decline in education quality. The statement said the CM had highlighted government school teachers’ salaries, ranging from Rs 70,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh, while questioning the quality of education, without acknowledging the role of government policies and systemic deficiencies. It said recruiting adequate teachers and addressing shortcomings in public schools remained the govt’s responsibility.