As many as 4,000 schools, including 2,500 government schools, will be assessed and accredited during the next academic year, said V.S. Geetha, deputy director, KSQAAC, on Wednesday.
Speaking on ‘Assuring quality in government schools’ at the National Summit on Quality in Education organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) of which The Hindu is the media partner, she said that the objective is to assess the school as a whole and the academic issues in the schooling system, and also the quality of schools from various angles.
The project was launched on a pilot basis in 2012-13. She remarked that only one school among 1,020 received the A+ grade (90 per cent and above) in that year.
Speaking on the sidelines of the event, she said that the purpose is not to find fault with the managements but to bring in qualitative changes and enhance learning outcomes across schools in Karnataka. “The State government is offering this service at a subsidised price. The service is offered to aided and unaided schools at Rs. 12,000 per institution, whereas the cost to the government is Rs. 25,000. Despite this, the response from aided and unaided schools is lukewarm,” she said.
A. Senthil Kumaran, principal counsellor and head, education excellence, CII Institute of Quality, spoke on international frameworks for school excellence and said that excellence is like a finishing line, which keeps extending all the time.
Over 500 heads of institutions from across the country participated in the event.
