Drop plan to close down schools, say SFI members

Students’ Federation of India (SFI) members have urged the State government to abandon plans to close government schools in favor of the proposed merger with Karnataka Public Schools.

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education coordinator at the DDPI office, requesting that the decision to close 64 government schools in Haveri be withdrawn.

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

“To draw the attention of the State government to the issue, we organized roundtable meetings, mass protests, resistance meetings, sensitized people about the survival of government schools, created a mass movement, organized street plays, organized marches across the State and organized various programs including Belagavi Chalo during the Winter Session,” they said.

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

Authorities recommend closing public schools, citing reasons such as low enrollment rates. This will seriously affect poor and deprived children. They said they came up with such surgical solutions without investigating why enrollment in public schools was falling.

The main reason why government schools are not in good condition is the failure of the State government to provide facilities like basic infrastructure, timely recruitment of teachers, failure to monitor the quality of teaching, provision of textbooks, programs and others. They said it was condemnable that the state government was now trying to destroy the public education system in favor of the private lobby.

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