From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Jul 3: While India is believed to enjoy the population dividend on account of the predominance of the younger generation as compared to many Western countries faced with elderly people because of the boom in population to become the world’s second most populous country, there is another school of thought suggesting that most of the couples following one-child norm has led to closure of a large number of schools in rural areas.

This point was raised by BJP’s newly elected member from Kadur assembly constituency, Belli Prakash, who said many of the primary schools in villages were forced to be closed due to lack of students.

The lack of students has seriously affected government schools, he said participating the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address to the joint session of the legislature.

Prakash told the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday that several government schools had been either closed or faced a threat of closure owing to the one-child norm policy followed by couples.

He said the plight of the government primary schools in his Kadur constituency in Chikkamagaluru district was very acute.

Prakash said parents have not been sending their wards to government primary schools owing to poor infrastructure, teaching faculty and implementation of the Kannada medium policy.

However, the government primary schools located in areas dominated by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and OBC population have been receiving good number of admissions, he said.

Shivalinga Gowda (JD-S) said the Right to Education (RTE) Act and poor infrastructure were major factors for closure of government schools. Few other members said the owing to RTE Act, the government has been reimbursing Rs 15,000 per student per year.

Poornina Srinivas (BJP) said absence of basic amenities such as drinking water, toilets, teachers, playgrounds led to poor admissions in government schools and their closure.

Arvind Chandrakant Bellad (BJP) said parents were keen to get their kids, who studied at the government run anganwadi centres, admission private English medium schools.

Instead of proving funds to private schools under the RTE, the government should utilise funds for improving infrastructure in its own schools, BJP members said.