At least 25 schools issued notices for violating department norms

Over 20 schools have allegedly violated Language Policy

November 24, 2014 02:46 pm | Updated 02:46 pm IST - Bengaluru:

At least 25 schools in the city have been served show-cause notices for violating norms of the Education Department.

Of this, more than 20 schools have been issued the notices for violating the State government’s 1994 Language Policy and running classes one to five in English medium, although they have obtained permission to run classes in Kannada medium.

Block Education Officers (BEO) were asked to crack down on schools violating the department’s norms by November 29, and three-member committees were even formed.

The schools have responded to the show-cause notices issued earlier this month by BEOs by simply attaching the Supreme Court judgments.

A helpless BEO said: “We do not know what our next course of action should be.”

Objecting to the crackdown, private school managements said the government cannot act against schools for Language Policy violation as the Supreme Court judgment quashed the government’s policy of making the mother tongue or regional language the compulsory medium of instruction in lower primary classes. The review petition filed by the government was also quashed subsequently. The government has now moved for a curative petition.

After the review petition was quashed, associations had urged the department to register schools as English medium. A meeting scheduled to discuss the Language Policy on November 13 did not take place and has been postponed to December.

D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of English Medium School in Karnataka, said: “The government should resolve the policy issue as per Supreme Court’s directives.”

In fact, last week, the High Court pulled up the government and questioned its notification that permitted only Kannada-medium private schools for classes one to five for the 2015–16 academic year.

However, a department official said that only some schools could take shelter under the Language Policy judgment as they had made submissions to the courts that they were running classes in English medium even though they had obtained permission for Kannada medium.

“If schools show us documents that prove that they have applied seeking permission for English medium, we will ask our officers not to take action. But if they have made no such effort, they are cheating the department and we will be forced initiate action against them.”

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