I, like thousands of others, have been distressed by the unfortunate, yet avoidable, developments (or under-development?) seriously affecting the future of over 3.5 lakh students. The derecognition of 400 schools will badly demoralise students and teachers of those schools as well as parents. As I have watched it over the last six months, politics and irrational public wrangling have scripted the present crisis. Rigid positions taken by the managements and the education department have resulted in this crisis.

One cannot fault the government or take exception to the order of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka in finding fault with the schools which violated the terms of approval by the government for starting the primary schools. It was a straightforward case of violation of formal agreement with the government. Why they adopted English medium instead of the sanctioned medium or why the unending demand from parents with all sorts of social background for English is an important related issue but a separate one for consideration. A word about it later.
I have always declared my own belief on the need to teach and learn in one’s mother tongue for at least four years. It is also very important not to mix up the issue of the medium with “teaching” or familiarising children from Class I with English as a language. Even now, I find protagonists of mother tongue mixing the two intentionally or otherwise. If we had started introducing Class I kids to learning English in the most functional, non-grammatical manner some years ago, a majority of the parents would now be quite relaxed on this needless controversial question of language.

The real problem is that the system as a whole has failed. It is a comprehensive failure of the management, management of the issue in its complex background. True, the schools were persistently in violation of the agreement; true, the government is right in its stand and hence our own support; logically correct for the government to say that parents should have verified the language status of schools; true and logical. But life is not logical, is it? It is hopelessly unrealistic of anyone including policy makers and bureaucrats to expect parents to check on the issue in question. Educational administration has gone along with this predicament for several years. Lakhs of young minds and their parents are unfortunately sucked into this predicament.

Management involves designing and maintaining environment in which an organization, groups of people and individual leaders work to a purpose. Where large groups of people such as students and parents are outside the “organisation” (which is the Education department), the heavier onus will be on the department/government to initiate dialogue with the groups rather than debate with them via the media. The government should also not be seen to be buckling down to pressure from a small group of language protagonists but should have managed the crisis considering the reality of massive dislocation of innocent kids. It was my impression that the department’s leadership didn’t anticipate the crisis. Instead it made repeated heroic statements using war-like language matched only by defiant stand of the managements. No innovation at all to meet the crisis from the angle of the students came from the department.

We had suggested in the Legislative Council that children who are already in these schools should be allowed to complete primary schooling in whatever medium subject to: (a) clear announcement by schools that from the year 2008-09, there will only be Kannada medium instruction and (b) appointment of teachers who would teach in Kannada and proof of which is to be given to the Education department. Such a scheme would facilitate phasing out English medium during the next 3-4 years.

It doesn’t amount to rendering lawful an unlawful act. Would this, by comparison, be worse than regularizing large-scale unlawful construction of residential and commercial property in Bangalore? Which legal theory can really justify, as a matter of public policy, large-scale construction, especially commercial, violating building bye-laws?

Finally, how is the government going to relocate around 75000 students in the 400 schools now derecognised? School fees has already been paid. On an average, we have at least seven teachers, one per classroom, in all 2,800 teachers in these schools also to be accommodated. Or do we ease them out from their jobs? The government and the Association of Private Schools Management would probably do well even now to withdraw their cases from the High Court and arrive at a sensible solution entirely from the standpoint of the children. They are the ones who are already seriously psychologically damaged and left wondering what governance is all about.

The writer is chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council.