Chief Minister Siddaramiah made a number of announcements pertaining to the education sector in Friday’s State budget.
A new government medical college will come up on the Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital campus in Bengaluru with an intake of 150 students. Presently, Bangalore Medical College and Research Centre (BMCRI) is the only government medical college in the City.
“Chennai has three government medical colleges while Mumbai and Delhi have more than one. We have the infrastructure and the new college will be a boon for Bengaluru,” said an official from the BMCRI.
The government will also start new medical colleges at Karwar, Chamarajanagar and Madikeri towns this year. Besides, it will increase the student intake from 100 to 150 at government medical colleges in Mandya, Hassan, Shivamogga, Belagavi, Raichur and Bidar.
The Medical Education Department has been allocated Rs 1,614 crore and the Department of Higher Education Rs 4,651 crore. The government will open Centres for Excellence at Visvesvaraya Technological University, Bangalore University and Tumkur University at a total cost of Rs 10 crore. Karnatak University, Dharwad, will get a research centre named after the slain Kannada researcher, Dr M M Kalburgi, at a cost of Rs 2 crore.
Job-oriented courses in information technology, telecom, retail, tourism, etc, will be introduced at five government engineering colleges under Indo-German collaboration at a cost of Rs 5 crore.
Primary education
Primary and secondary education will get Rs 17,373 crore, with a significant amount of funds to be spent to improve the quality of education in government schools. The following measures have been suggested:
* The department’s existing schemes will be integrated and brought under five new programmes: education quality improvement, quality assurance initiatives, technology-assisted learning, incentives for universalisation of primary education and students’ motivation programmes.
* Digital literacy will be provided at all government high schools through a new scheme called ‘IT@schools in Karnataka’. Information technology will be used to gauge the learning levels of students in government schools and children enrolled into private schools under the Right To Education (RTE) Act.
* Processes like registration of schools and pre-university colleges, renewal of recognition, etc, will be made online and connected to ‘Sakala’.
Social Welfare dept
* 125 new residential schools for SC/ST boys and girls in hoblis where there are no residential schools.
* 100 per cent fee reimbursement for engineering and medical students who are selected through CET and whose annual income is between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.
Minority Welfare dept
* Rs 50 crore for modernisation of madrasas and computer education.
* A chair to be set up at Kalaburagi for religious minorities.
