City-based social activists have urged the Chief Minister to establish a high-level committee of experts drawn from both private and government sectors to monitor the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 and shore up the quality of education.
An online petition has also been started to garner support for their demand and Ashvini Ranjan, who has been involved in the endeavour, said it was inevitable if the country was to develop and progress economically and socially. The petition said a basic level of education and awareness in its people is a prerequisite for the country’s progress but 74 years after independence had not seen any upliftment in the education system.
More than 60 per cent of the students in the country were exposed to poor and pitiful schools and 40 per cent of the children in class 5 could not read or do math of grade 2 while 30 per cent of class 8 students had similar disability. The pandemic has worsened the situation, said the petition.
It was pointed out that in Karnataka, there were 44,716 government primary schools out of which 4,767 schools had only single teachers. The petition also called for ensuring that teachers are not given other assignments which disturbs or takes away their focus from teaching and in this context it was pointed out that a government school teacher spends only 19 per cent of teaching time in the classroom. The rest of the time is spent on other government related work and when the teacher is on government-related extraneous works, no teaching takes place in the classroom.
Bhamy V Shenoy, a social activist who is also involved in the field of education said that the learning process has deteriorated in the State due to the pandemic as per the 2021 survey. The petition also questioned the practice of transferring the teachers and said it was a colonial hangover and should be dispensed with. This disrupts the teaching and the learning process and hence should be disbanded and the continuity of the teachers should be ensured, said Mr. Shenoy.
Students’ evaluation with emphasis on examination that encouraged rote learning came under flak and the petition called for a continuous evaluation. Calling for increasing the GDP spending on education from 3.5 per cent to 6 per cent, the petition also sought decentralisation of the system.
