A nearly two-hour long meeting on Monday between government officials and office-bearers of the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association (KUSMA) to discuss about the weeklong bandh in protest against the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act remained inconclusive.
Kumar G. Naik, Secretary, Primary and Secondary Education, and Tushar Girinath, State Project Director for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan participated in the meeting. A. Mariyappa, secretary, KUSMA said the strike would continue.
However, Mr. Naik refused to call the meeting a failure and was optimistic that the association would call off the strike. Brushing aside the need for punitive action against schools that participate in the bandh, he said the government was aware of the service these schools had rendered, and hoped that the need for action would not arise. About the issues raised at the meeting, Mr. Naik said the government already had a mechanism in place on the definition of minority institutions which are exempt from the RTE quota.
Meanwhile, the bandh call received a lukewarm response from KUSMA members. If government figures are to be believed, in Bangalore at least, only 60 schools which are members of KUSMA responded to the bandh call on the first day. Of these, 26 schools in the north educational block and 34 in the south block participated in the strike. KUSMA has nearly 1,800 members, and over 400 of them are in Bangalore. However, KUSMA office-bearers claimed that 90 per cent of its members participated in the strike.
Government sources did not rule out de-recognition as the last resort if the schools continued the agitation. “We are refraining as the students’ future is at stake,” said the source.
