Budget reflects systemic decline of public education, says AIDSO

AIDSO has criticised the State Budget as a symbol of systemic decline of public education.

The State Budget presented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is a systematic attempt to centralize and neglect public education infrastructure. Despite having phrases like “Transformation of Higher Education” and “Quality Learning”, the Budget is disappointing.

“It records the falling public investment in education. It is down to about 10.5% compared to last year. It also finalises the controversial policy of setting up Karnataka Public Schools, that is an anti-poor move as it closes down rural schools. This shows the lack of commitment of the Siddaramaiah government towards public education,” AIDSO said.

“We condemn this move of the Siddaramaiah government to upgrade 800 schools to Karnataka Public Schools (KPS) with a grant of ₹3,900 crore. It creates islands of education, while closing down smaller schools in villages. It will lead to closure of thousands of rural schools that are the backbone of primary education. The Budget has allocated only ₹565 crore for the construction and repair of new classrooms in schools across the State. Similarly, the allocation of ₹75 crore for toilets and ₹25 crore for furniture cannot address the basic problems of our school buildings,” AIDSO members said.

“In higher education, the ₹2,500 crore Karnataka Higher Education Transformation Project is a corporate-driven and start-up-centric model. It is designed to exclude the common man from education. Developing only 40 government first-class colleges and 11 polytechnics as model institutions and setting up nine centres of excellence for a start-up culture is a complete disregard for the basic educational needs of a majority of students,” the activists said.

The Budget speaks of filling 1,000 teaching posts in universities and 15,000 posts in schools and colleges. But these are negligible compared to the over 50,000 teacher and lecturer posts lying vacant in the State. The outlay of ₹31 crore on basic amenities for girl students in 25 colleges and polytechnics is inadequate, they said.

Meanwhile, AIDSO District Coordinator Mahantesh Bilur has in a press release said that the Karnataka State Committee of his organisation condemns this Budget.