Drop plan to close down schools, say SFI members

Students Federation of India (SFI) members have urged the State government to drop plans of closing down government schools, in the name of merger with the proposed Karnataka Public Schools.

In Haveri on Tuesday, members submitted a memorandum to education coordinator at the DDPI office Niranjan Murthy demanding that the decision to close down 64 government schools in Haveri be abandoned.

They also demanded that the list of schools proposed to be merged be released to the public.

“We have already organized round table meetings, massive protests, resistance meetings, sensitized people to the survival of government schools, formed a massive movement, organized street plays, organised marches across the State and various programs, including a Belagavi Chalo during the Winter Session, to draw the attention of the State government to the issue,” they said.

SFI will not allow any single school to be closed for any reason and warned that if the State government does not reverse the decision, a massive struggle will be launched.

Officials are proposing closure of government schools citing reasons like low enrolment. This will seriously affect the poor and deprived children. Without studying why enrolment in government schools is falling, they are coming up with such surgical solutions, they said.

The main reason for public schools not doing well is the failure of the State government in providing facilities like basic infrastructure, timely teacher recruitment, lack of monitoring over quality of teaching, providing textbooks, cycles and others. It is condemnable that the State government is now trying to destroy the public education system in favor of the private lobby, they said.

SFI district president Basavaraj S., leaders Arun Nagawat, Krishna Naik, Shambhu Savadatti, Parashurama, Lokesh and Dhanush Doddamani were present.