Kindergarten classes at govt schools from this year

The Education department will set up kindergarten (pre-primary) schools in as many as 276 Karnataka Public Schools (KPS) across the state from the academic year 2019-20.

The initiative from the government comes as a huge relief for parents from economically weaker sections of society, who intend to provide pre-primary education to their wards, but cannot afford it at private educational institutions - which demand lakhs of rupees as fees. Hitherto, the state government did not provide pre-primary education at its schools and as a result parents were compelled to admit their wards to private educational institutions shelling out huge amount of money as fee.

Though the department of Women and Child Development runs anganwadi centers across the state, they do not provide formal pre-primary education. In fact, pre-primary education at state-run schools had been one of the long-pending demands of parents and academicians.

The chief minister has given his approval for the proposal and according to the department officials, a notification on calendar of events would be issued soon.

S R Umashankar, Principal Secretary to Primary and Secondary Education department, who confirmed the development, told DH that all necessary arrangements had been made for setting up of pre-primary schools and admission would soon begin.

“To begin with, we will introduce lower kindergarten (LKG) at government schools which will be upgraded to upper kindergarten (UKG) during 2020-21,” he said.

The department has already identified eligible teachers for pre-primary classes and even the syllabus has also been prepared. This year, these classes will be managed by hiring guest teachers who are trained in pre-school education.