For a while now, the number of admissions at State schools has seen a declining trend with parents leaning more towards Central board schools. For the upcoming academic year, with issues like confusion over board examinations for classes 5, 8, 9, and 11 and fears of illegal schools, many State board schools have reportedly had one of the lowest admission turnouts.
“Every year, by this time, we used to get a few enquiries about admissions. This year, we have seen zero interest from parents. We have not had any new admissions so far,” said P.M. Satyanarayana, Principal at Presidency International English School.
The Karnataka State Examination and Assessment Board’s (KSEAB) decision to conduct board exams for classes 5, 8, 9, and 11 for 2023-24 was challenged in both the High Court and the Supreme Court by the Registered Unaided Private Schools’ Management Association-Karnataka, Bengaluru, and the Organisation for Unaided Recognised Schools, Bengaluru. All these proceedings had led to exams being halted midway, after two exams were conducted. While the High Court on March 22 allowed the board exams to be conducted, the Supreme Court on Monday ultimately stayed the High Court order and said that the results of these exams should be kept in abeyance.
“There is now confusion over the board exams for so many grades, which is not the case with Central schools. All the confusion this year added to the apprehension of parents. Apart from that, there are also factors like unrevised curriculum for classes 1 to 4. While the NCERT syllabus is currently being taught for classes 5 to 10, the curriculum for earlier classes has not been revised in 10 to 15 years. We have hardly had any fresh admissions this year. It is down by over 50% when compared to the previous year,” said Natesh Kumar, Principal, Gurukula International School.
Underage admissions
With the National Education Policy (NEP) rules making age requirements mandatory for kindergarten and class 1 admissions, some school managements allege that some schools provide admissions even for underage students illegally.
“We do not admit children if they are not four years for LKG, five years for UKG, and six years for class I. Some private schools do not care for such rules. Instead of waiting a few extra months or repeating a grade, parents, without much awareness about the legalities, admit their children to schools where they admit students illegally. This is also a reason for legitimate schools losing out on admissions,” Mr. Kumar said.
The managements stress that without stringent government action against such schools, legitimate schools will have to bear this brunt. “Even if we complain to the respective Block Education Officers (BEO), we rarely see any action taken. There is a lot of corruption,” Mr. Satyanarayana said.
This trend of fewer admissions has been around for around three years now, most school managements said.
D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools, said: “There is a lot of supply of schools in the city now. For parents, schools have become a status symbol and most of them are not aware of legalities. Board shifting has also become very prominent with all the recent developments. Hence, admissions for State Board have come down drastically”.
Although some schools have not received any enquiries until now for this year, they are still hopeful that they might get at least a few fresh admissions by the end of April.
