Date:04/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/04/stories/2009070454290400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Debate over move to make Std. 8 part of primary school

Special Correspondent

Centre for inclusion; State averse to disturbing system

The move helps in providing education to children up to 14 under SSA
Parents find it difficult to change schools when the child moves to Standard 9

Bangalore: A proposal to include Standard 8 as part of the primary school education, on the lines of the system in vogue in many other States in India, is now under debate in Karnataka, with the Centre and State holding contrary views on the issue.

The Centre is for the proposal in order to bring uniformity in the system throughout the country and fulfil the constitutional mandate of providing compulsory and free education to all children up to 14 under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) project.

However, Karnataka is not ready to change the system which is already in place where 8th standard constitutes the first year of high school. With education falling in the Concurrent list of the Constitution, the State’s position of it cannot be completely over-ruled. Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Visveshwara Hegde Kageri told The Hindu that including Standard 8 in primary school will lead to “dilution” of the existing system and disturb the administrative set up here.

The Centre’s insistence on change is intended to set right the administrative hurdles in implementing the SSA scheme under the current system.

Opening of Standard 8 classes has become mandatory in many areas in Karnataka because there is an obligation to provide access to schools to children aged up to 14 under SSA. Since 14-year-old children are in the first year of high school in Karnataka, this makes opening of high schools mandatory, but provide only one year of the high school education.

“We have started Standard 8 in some areas where access to high school is difficult because many drop out after Standard 7,” SSA project director for Karnataka, S. Selva Kumar said. But with Standard 8 being the first year of high school, children and parents often complain that it abandons them midway without one leg of education being completed.

Labour Minister and district-in-charge Minister of Bangalore Rural B.N. Bachche Gowda, who reviewed SSA programmes, said that this issue was raised by several parents in the district. “Many parents find it difficult to change from one school to another when the children move to Standard 9,” he said.

This anomaly could be set right by simply bringing Standard 8 under primary schooling, is the argument of the Centre. Such a system already exists in states like Tamil Nadu.