This year, several wannabe private school managements have failed their very first test. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has rejected about 85 per cent of the proposals to start upper primary and high schools as they do not have adequate land requirements.
For the first time, the government, in an attempt to curb “mushrooming” of private schools, introduced land norms, which department officials say was the criteria that many school managements were unable to meet.
Only 14.8 per cent of the 850 proposals for starting upper primary and high schools in Bengaluru and Mysuru subdivisions were given permission to run classes by the department. In the last academic year, 45.3 per cent of the schools from 703 applications received permission, after considering if they have met the basic infrastructural requirements.
As per revised land norms, each new school in the State capital needs to have half-an-acre of land for establishing classes 1 to 8; one acre for running classes 1 to 10; and half-an-acre to start classes 9 and 10. However, some private school managements are in a catch-22 situation as they have permission to run classes one to five as well as high school classes, but are denied permission for classes 6 to 8.
D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said, “All these years, the State government sat on these proposals citing the language policy hurdle, and now they are insisting on land norms. Despite the High Court making it clear that these norms should not be made mandatory for existing schools, department officials are pushing for this,” he said.
Space being one of the major infrastructure constraints in schools, the HRD Ministry in 2012 had relaxed one of the infrastructural requirements under the Right to Education Act, 2009, according to which every school must have a playground on its premises. Now, every school is not mandated to have a playground, giving a breather for schools but proving to be a setback for students. The State government’s ambitious plans of deciding to map common playgrounds for schools has not been fruitful. Mullahalli Suri, president of parents association, said as all schools do not have playgrounds, the children do not get the required physical activity.
