Government says it has 95 pc of data on recognition of private schools

The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) says it has compiled at least 95 per cent of the data that throws light on the validity of recognition and affiliation of private aided and unaided schools throughout Karnataka. 

The department had formed several three-man committees of Block Education Officers (BEOs) and two other education officials in September last year to compile the data after it emerged that many schools in Bengaluru were functioning without proper recognition. 

In the DPI database, a copy of which is available with Deccan Herald, there are details of 21,634 out of a total of 22,647 aided and unaided schools throughout Karnataka. In some districts, all the schools have been covered. Some of them are Uttara Kannada (217 schools), Ballari (859 schools), Yadgir (373 schools). In most other districts, around 90 per cent of the schools have submitted their details, according to the list. But in Shivamogga, just 523 out of the total 658 schools have submitted the details. 

In the educational district of Bengaluru South (Urban), 2,090 out of the total 2,210 schools have submitted their details while in Bengaluru North (Urban) district, 1,578 out of the 1,589 schools have provided the data. 

Karnataka has 23,686 private schools—6,365 aided and 17,321 unaided, according to the District Information System for Education (DISE) figures for 2012-13. When the discrepancy in these figures was pointed out, K Anand, director, Primary Education, said: “A number of schools in the DISE data have been classified according to primary, higher primary and high school sections even though they may come under the same institution. But in this report, all these sections have been clubbed together under one school.”