Primary and Secondary Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar said on Monday his department would be launching a helpline to solve the grievances of students, parents and teachers on March 31.
He was speaking after inaugurating the new building of Government Higher Primary School at Mannur Padukere here and also the 75th anniversary celebrations of the school here.
Mr. Kumar said that the intention behind the launch of the helpline was to help the parents, students and teachers. There were many philanthropists, who wanted to construct buildings, and set up libraries and laboratories in government schools. Some people wanted to teach English and computer science to students in government schools. But these philanthropists found it difficult to visit several departmental offices to get permission for these works. Hence, the department had decided to launch an app to make it easy for philanthropists and others to get permission for their plans, he said.
Mr. Kumar said students were carrying school bags that were full of books. The weight of the bags was too much to bear. Hence, the government had decided to take measures to reduce the weight from the next academic year.
It would also be introducing two bag-less days a month from the next academic year. On these two days, students would not have to carry their bags to school. Instead, they would have to participate in extra-curricular activities on these days, he said.
After the video clip of recent incident of a teacher asking a student to pronounce a word went viral, his department had issued instructions to the teachers not to use mobile phones or film such incidents on their phones. “A teacher should be like a mother to the students,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said he wanted to see long queues for admission outside government schools. There should be migration of students from private schools to government schools. He would grant Karnataka Public School for the Government Higher Primary and High School here so that it could also have a pre-university college on campus, he said.
Minister for Ports and Fisheries and Muzrai Kota Srinivas Poojary, MLA Halady Srinivas Shetty, and others were present.
