Don’t be surprised if you see the mischievous student of the Kannada college musical Kirik Party taking to social media to urge citizens to adopt government schools and do their bit to improve infrastructure and teaching resources. The Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has roped in actor and director Rakshit Shetty to be the brand ambassador of its new government school enhancement programme.
The initiative, to be launched this month-end, aims to get individuals and corporates more involved in State-run schools so as to improve the quality of education. And this is where Mr. Shetty comes in: He will be the face of the campaign.
The actor told The Hindu that the commission approached him after they learnt that the production house behind Kirik Party decided to auction the car used in the film to fund the education of children of sex workers. “When I used to work as a software engineer before joining the film industry, a few of us would donate 10% of our income to meet some of the needs of a government school in Udupi,” said Mr. Shetty, managing director of Paramvah Studios which produced the film. The production house will also be adopting a government school.
Kripa Alva, commission chairperson, said they decided to take up this initiative for comprehensive development of government schools. “We have been receiving many complaints from parents whose children study in private schools. So, we thought strengthening government schools would make some of them change their mind and they would send their children to government schools,” she said. The plan is the address the needs of government schools on a case-by-case basis, depending on what an individual school’s requirements are.
The campaign will be launched later this month. To begin with, a programme plan for one year has been mapped out. Some of the facilities the commission plans to provide include toilets with water, access to drinking water, compound wall, colourful classrooms, and supply of essentials such as notebooks, bags, blackboards, and even computers.
