Falling apart: The dire state of public schools in Karnataka

Teacher shortages and infrastructural decay jeopardise the future of students across the state.

Bengaluru/Kalaburagi: A dilapidated building, a cracked ceiling, dripping rainwater, and two teachers conducting five classes in one classroom — these are the sights one can witness at the Vadera Basapura Tanda Government Lower Primary School in Harapanahalli taluk of Vijayanagara district. Even though grants have been sanctioned, a new building has not been constructed yet.

The school in Nichavvanahalli gram panchayat is 38 years old and has just two rooms. Out of one room operates a kitchen, and in the other room, two teachers run classes one to five.

The classroom is in shambles. Crumbling plaster pieces occasionally fall  from the ceiling, evoking fear in teachers and students. 

This room also serves as the headmaster's room and houses stationery and non-curricular materials. The drinking water purifier has been kept in the Anganwadi building on the same campus due to paucity of space.

These snapshots provide glimpses of what a fund-crunched, broken education system can look like. In Karnataka, the education department gets just 11.9% of the budget — lower than the national average of 14%. 

Additionally, of the Rs 35,000 crore allocation that the department receives, 97% is spent on salaries and midday meals. Only about 2.93% is put towards infrastructure needs. 

The effect of this consistent lack of funding is evident in schools across the state.  In south Bengaluru, a school with structural damage sits close to a stormwater drain, dangerously slanting. Despite the danger, there has been no intervention and no efforts to demolish and rebuild. 

In one such instance in Davangere, an old classroom structure collapsed in a government lower primary school on July 25, but fortunately, no children were hurt. When a compound wall collapsed in May this year at Harekala Hajabba School in New Padpu, near Mangaluru, a seven-year-old girl was killed. 

In another such incident, a Class seven student was seriously injured after a layer of cement from the roof collapsed at the Government Model Higher Primary School for Girls in Devadurga town in Raichur district.

“Only old structures were found to have collapsed. This is because new classrooms are added after a gap of certain years, as per requirement. Due to a fund shortage, we cannot build an entire school with proper architecture,” says B B Cauvery, Commissioner of Public Instruction. 

To build new structures, the government provides Rs 14.5 lakh per classroom for primary classes and Rs 16 lakh for high schools. The Panchayat Raj Department constructs classrooms, school compounds and playgrounds in villages and small towns using funds from the education department and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS).

Cauvery says the requirements always come from the local level and panchayats and local communities are empowered to decide what is needed for a school. On the ground, however, teachers from many districts tell DH, that local politics and corruption prevent this essential work from actually occurring. 

Sanitation

While the collapse of buildings is a major problem, broken toilets present another persistent issue in schools. Take for example the state of a government bilingual high school in Holalkere in Chitradurga district. The school has more than 1,000 children enrolled. “The existing toilets are sufficient for only 200 students. Everyone knows more toilets are needed here,” says a source from the school.

According to the department's own estimates, 19,401 additional classrooms, 22,689 boys’ toilets and 52,298 girls’ toilets are required in schools across the state. 

Government schools in seven districts in Kalyana Karnataka had 21,44,700 students enrolled in 2023-24 and only 21,601 functional toilets. This means that on average there is one toilet per 100. The ratio to be maintained, according to the  2018 Annual Status of Education Report is one to 40. 

“Over 9% of the existing toilets are non-functional. Lack of basic facilities will affect children’s health, education, and safety. Girls do not drink water throughout the day just to avoid going to the toilet. This definitely impacts their health,” says Sangeetha Kattimani, an educationist from Kalaburagi.

The shortage of functional toilets can have serious repercussions. Such a situation can lead to girls dropping out of school, especially after attaining puberty. In 2013, the Karnataka High Court initiated suo motu proceedings based on a news report that estimated that 54,000 students were out of school. The case tried to address the lack of basic infrastructural requirements in schools.

Much of the functional toilets in schools have not been maintained properly. Though the department recently allocated money for toilet maintenance, it is often inadequate and barely covers the cost of cleaning supplies, say sources from schools.

In rural areas, most schools are forced to come to unofficial agreements with existing staff like cooks, who balance cleaning requirements with their duties. In some instances,  children are made to clean toilets. 

“We have also noticed a few examples of teachers picking children from particular communities, which is simply unacceptable. In a country like India, ridden with caste biases, such incidents just reinforce the stereotypes,” says Kathyayini Chamaraj, co-founder of CIVIC Bengaluru. Chamaraj has provided inputs to the court in the High Court-initiated suo motu case. 

An official told DH that the government could address the issue in cities by asking the municipalities to take up the task. “BBMP collects 2% education cess, they should also be asked to take up maintenance, just like they clean and maintain public toilets,” the official says.

Lack of teachers

In addition to a lack of D-group staff, schools in Karnataka suffer from a shortage of teachers to this day. About 46,311 teacher posts (24.6 %) are vacant in primary schools and 33,863 have been filled with guest teachers. There are 11,629 vacancies (26.2% shortage) in secondary schools and 8,954 guest teachers have been allotted. 

The student-teacher ratio presently is 21:1 while the norm according to the Right to Education Act 2009 is 30:1. 

These gaps are evident and palpable on the ground. “Suppose a lower primary school has 20 kids from Class 1 to 5. As per the Act, this school will get two teachers, which is the bare minimum any school should get,” says an official. On the other hand, a school with 300 children in a nearby city can have only eight teachers — which is a large gap. 

Thus, some schools with lower enrollment might get teachers in proportion to it,  schools with high enrollment often get the short end of the stick. While the department is considering the amalgamation of neighbourhood schools to address the issue, local pressure and logistical challenges have prevented a solid resolution of the issue.

Another official points out that no posts are sanctioned to fill the temporary vacancies caused due to teachers' long leaves in case of health issues, maternity or childcare. Though the posts seem filled, teachers are unavailable and a guest teacher cannot be hired. This leads to poor learning outcomes.

“When you sanction 1,000 English-medium schools that will begin from Class 1, sanction the same number of teachers. Dedicated teachers are needed to sustain English medium education and compete with private schools, which is the goal of introducing it in the first place,” the official says. 

In such schools, existing staff cannot be upgraded due to a lack of capacity and interest. The state introduced English-medium schools in 2019. Now, 3,823 bilingual schools offer English-medium education along with Kannada or Urdu. While there is a huge demand for English medium schools, it is quality that is lacking. 

Kalyana Karnataka 

Regional variance in the quality of infrastructure of hired staff is also evident in Karnataka’s schools. Dilapidated classrooms are more common in government schools in the seven districts of the Kalyana Karnataka region. Excessive rains in 2023 have exacerbated poor infrastructural conditions in several school buildings. With the onset of monsoon, teachers and students have expressed their concern, yet again. Leaking roofs and the poor condition of classrooms have adversely impacted classroom functioning and learning.

According to the Commissionerate of School Education in the Kalaburagi division, more than 12,000 classrooms require major and minor repairs in 9,000 government schools. 

A few classrooms were repaired when they became polling booths during the Assembly elections. Last year, the government built 1,360 additional classrooms under the Vivek scheme and also released Rs 4.82 crore to repair and construct toilets under the MGNREGS. 

However, 274 schools still lack drinking water facilities. Additionally, though official data shows that 95% of the schools have electricity connections, inadequate power supply in rural areas means that classrooms operate without electricity. Educationists have sought to remedy this by requesting that government schools be brought under the Niranthara Jyothi scheme. They have also recommended the installation of power generators for e-classrooms to make state government schools on par with Kendriya Vidyalaya. This would ensure the proper functioning of projectors and interactive panels.

The result of regional variance is that many students shift to hostels in districts in the south of the state from north Karnataka. It is not uncommon to see students from north Karnataka joining hostels in south Karnataka and continuing studies, which is also due to parents' migration many times.

The north Karnataka districts do not have enough teachers because the hiring of teachers is skewed towards south Karnataka. An official in the know says teachers who join in North Karnataka migrate back to the South with transfers, creating vacancies that cannot be filled immediately. 

To address issues in education, the Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB) has undertaken some classroom repair work and earmarked 25% of its grants for the education sector under the ‘Akshara Avishkara’ scheme, starting from this year. 

The fund crunch

Eleven years from when the High Court initiated suo motu proceedings, the state government is still trying to address the lack of basic amenities in schools. 

The state is mandated, under the Right to Education Act, 2009, to ensure that minimum norms are met. However, the government has cited the shortage of funds as the major reason why schools have failed to pass muster in terms of architecture and staff requirements. 

Experts estimate that about Rs 8,100 crore would be required to develop the existing 41,905 primary schools and 4,950 secondary schools. This year, the allocation for infrastructure, at Rs 1,002.57 crore, was a fraction of this cost .

Officials estimate that realistically, an annual budget of Rs 5,000 crore is needed to meet the infrastructural requirements of schools in the state. They admit that the grants and resources are not enough to conduct capacity-building among teachers or provide them with training. 

"As a minister, I will strive to get the required budget to fix the infrastructure," Madhu Bangarappa, state education minister, told DH. He adds that the Samagra Shikshana Karnataka programmes undertakes all activities related to capacity building and learning outcomes. “The state had requested additional allocation under Samagra Shikshana Karnataka (SSK) as the average per-child allocation for the state is very low compared to other comparable states,” he says. 

An analysis of 2023-24 data from other states shows that the central government’s allocation per child in five other states is Rs 5,297. As per this average, the reasonable expectation of allocation for Karnataka would be Rs 2,885 crore compared to the existing allocation of Rs 1,538 crore. There is a shortfall of 1,347 crore.

This shortfall adds to the department's financial burden and affects learning outcomes.

Kathyayini is critical of this. “Time and again, experts have pointed out that money should go towards health and education instead of high-end infrastructure such as expressways and elevated corridors. Why can the government not fund this?” she asks. 

“We are comparably a rich state. Let the government increase the education budget to 14% like other states, which can address the shortfall,” she says.

Models and hopes

As the demand for quality education rises among all sections of society, the department has come up with a bilingual public school model and identified 286 schools with the scope of upgradation. To improve their infrastructure, a one-time grant of Rs 2 crore was also given to these schools.

Education experts say this model can be sustainable in the long run. There are also a few examples of well-run government schools in Bengaluru, especially those that operate with additional donations under the corporate social responsibility programmes or with the support of nongovernmental organisations.

The Government Higher Primary School in Ramagondanahalli is a shining example. A local international school, Inventure Academy, stepped in to start and support an English-medium section and volunteers from Whitefield Rising, a citizen collective, championed the cause. The state education department considers this a model school.

“This model is doable everywhere, provided there is passion and empathy among communities surrounding the schools,” says Sumedha R, a volunteer from Whitefield Ready (a branch of Whitefield Rising), who supports the English medium section in the school. The example is about to be replicated in other areas as well.

“Corporates and NGOs are concentrated in Bengaluru, that too in just a few schools. They do not go beyond. It would be helpful if they stepped out and explored more needy schools,” says Cauvery.

The department hopes to get more support for materials and money. A website, Namma Shale Nanna Koduge, lists all government schools in the state and details how each school can be supported. However, without consistent annual funding, schools in Karnataka will continue to struggle to provide children with basic amenities.