Curtains for city’s oldest Kannada school

BENGALURU: The high school section of the oldest Kannada medium school in Bengaluru, Model School Education Society in Chamarajpet, which started in 1870, has shut down despite the Rajyotsava Day assurance given by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah that no Kannada school in the state will be closed this academic year. Late Kannada actor Vishuvardhan studied in this school’s high school section.The closure followed a notice issued by the state Department of Public instruction.

While the high school section was started in 1957, the primary section, which started in 1870, is also set to close down in the coming days.The closure came after a three-month-long process of the Department of Public Instruction following insufficient student and teacher strength. The school has been running classes from 1 to 10, and now the management has written to the state government seeking permission to close down the 147-year-old primary section too.

The school’s secretary, Yadu Kumar, confirmed to The New Indian Express: “We recently shut down the high school section and requested the government even to close down the primary section as they are not approving posts of teachers. How can we run without teachers?”

18 Kannada schools shut due to lack of students, teachers

Eighteen aided Kannada schools across Karnataka were closed down earlier and 10 more were issued notices in October 2017 to close down due to lack of student and teacher strength. Model School Education Society, the oldest Kannada school in the City, was among the 10.

“As these schools did not even have 25 students in high school sections, the department issued notices to the school managements asking them to shut. Of that, the first school (in Bengaluru) (Model School Education Society) has been now closed down,” said a senior official of the DPI.

According to the department officials, this measure has been taken following fewer admissions. As per the department norms, aided schools must maintain the student strength of 25 per section in high schools.
The department gets a report from district officials every year on student strength in aided and government schools.“The government has powers to issue notice, or withdraw grants provided to aided schools if they fail to maintain the student strength. Department is doing everything under its purview and going according to the norms,” explained a senior official.

However, members of the school management allege that this has happened due to the department officials. “Although we have sought for appointment of teachers, the department officials did not respond since years and we had to manage with a single teacher. Due to this, the admissions too came down. Finally, we had to shut the high school section,” said Model School Education Society Secretary Yadu Kumar.