At least 1,000 derecognised schools in the State may face cancellation of their registration, as they have failed to either  opt for the Government proposed Voluntary Scheme or the High Court’s conditional order for continuation of recognition, till date.
As of now, less than half of the 2,250 derecognised schools in the State have agreed to adopt Kannada or mother tongue media for 2007-08 first standard admissions, in lieu of continuation of their recognition. As per the High Court order and the Voluntary Scheme, schools agreeing to take up Kannada medium for fresh first standard admissions for the year would be allowed to use English medium for their second to fifth standard students.
Government Advocate at High Court, B Manohar, told Deccan Herald about concerned legal provisions : “As stated by the Voluntary Scheme itself, now the State Government can cancel the registration certificates pertaining to the disagreeing derecognised schools, under Section 34 of Karnataka Education Act, 1983.”
“And once registration is cancelled, running such schools would become an offence punishable with a minimum of six months’ prison term and fine, as per section 123 of the Act.’’
Upon a query, Bangalore South DDPI, Yashoda said that no orders with regard to the action to be taken against such schools were received yet.
Out of the 911 derecognised schools under Bangalore South division, 199 have opted Voluntary Scheme by paying Rs one lakh penalty & 143 others have undertaken to use Kannada medium for first standard classes of 2007-08.
However, the process of ascertaining the total number of schools disagreeing from the Government option is under progress at the department as well as by the School Management Associations. KUSMA president K S Sharma said that it would take two or three days to ascertain the exact number of its members, not agreeing to the change over.