Govt schools lose almost 5 lakh students in three years

Enrolment of students in govt schools in the state has consistently gone down in the post-Covid years, statistics placed in the legislative council indicate.

Figures released by the department of school education and literacy Monday indicated that admissions in the state-run primary schools and high schools fell significantly in the last three academic years.

Quoting the figures, Congress' ML Anil Kumar said student enrollment had decreased by 4.7 lakh. "Whereas student enrollment in 2022-23 was at 45.4 lakh, it dropped to 42.9 lakh. The same figures for 2024-25 crashed to 40.7 lakh," Kumar said.

Education and literacy minister Madhu Bangarappa informed the House that the govt was conscious of the issue and was acting to turn the situation around.

"Among the key problems affecting admissions is the lack of pre-primary classes in govt schools," Bangarappa stated. "We have now initiated around 5,000 LKG-UKG classes apart from introducing bilingual education. We expect that these steps will attract more students towards govt schools."

Bangarappa informed that Karnataka Public Schools — offering continuous schooling from kindergarten to pre-university — were opened to increase enrolments. "The govt has been establishing such schools in rural areas on priority," he added.

Official statistics placed before the discussion indicated there were a number of proposals to shut state high schools. Still, Bangarappa asserted that the govt is not going to close any school because of low enrolment.

"We have had proposals to close schools with extremely poor student strength. But we have not closed a single primary school on the basis of poor admissions. I assure the House that we will not close such schools in the future either," he said.

Contrary to the minister's statement, a high school at Hulikal, Tumakuru district, was closed in 2023-24 because of insufficient student strength.

Bangarappa further stated the govt will finish recruitment of teachers in Kalyana Karnataka region within four months of issue of internal reservation quota. Responding to a calling attention by BJP's CT Ravi in the legislative council, Bangarappa stated there are 16,577 teacher vacancies in govt primary schools in Kalyana Karnataka and over 33,527 vacancies in the rest of the state. The govt had sanctioned filling of 4,882 posts, but filling was put on hold due to outstanding internal reservation matters.