Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SD)

Bengaluru, May 26: Citing government's apathy towards the needs of private schools and lack of funds, several private school associations in Karnataka alongside the Teachers’ Federation and the Minority Educational Institutions’ Association said they will not resume classes for the next academic year on June 15, 2021, if their demands are not fulfilled. Associated Management of English Medium schools in Karnataka (KAMS), Recognised Unaided Private Schools Association (RUPSA), Karnataka ICSE School Association, Karnataka Unaided Schools Managements Association (KUSMA), and other associations together have put forth a slew of demands including vaccination for teaching and non-teaching staff, relief packages and mandatory enrolment of students.

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Shashi Kumar, general secretary of KAMS, speaking to the media said that although the schools are prepared to reopen, unless the government issues an advisory asking parents to enrol their wards, they would not reopen the schools. They have further demanded that the teachers and the non-teaching staff be inoculated on priority basis before resuming operations for the academic year.

“The private schools’ management, teachers and all stakeholders held a meeting and we arrived at a conclusion that we will reopen schools from June 15. However, if the government fails to take any action towards vaccinating the teaching and non-teaching staff, we will not resume operations. We also demand the government to issue an advisory to the parents to ensure they enrol their wards in schools and also ensure they attend classes,” Shashi Kumar said.

Further, unlike what the government order stated, he said that the schools are being pressured to promote the children to higher grades without any assessment. The government had advised schools to assess children based on their performance in assignments and attendance.

Previously, the private schools had complained of a data security breach by the Department of Primary and Secondary Education, and demanded for action to be taken against the persons responsible for the security breach. The private schools had alleged that important personal data of students that is updated in the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) database could be misused. The data is entered by Cluster Resource Persons (CRPs) who allegedly let individual schools use their user ID and passwords to do so, thereby compromising the security of the already recorded data.

“The government should promptly initiate action against the culprits behind the data breach and suspend them from their posts. If the government fails to do that, we (the private school associations) shall not back further data updates,” Shashi Kumar said.

In the relief package announced by the B S Yediyurappa-led government for various sectors, teachers were not included. Shashi Kumar appealed that either the government or the local leaders should come up with relief packages for the teachers.