Education sector in Karnataka marred by chaos

Eggs or their alternatives, bananas or groundnut chikkis, were distributed along with mid-day meals in government and aided schools two days a week after nutritional deficiencies in children were flagged following the pandemic.
| Photo Credit: special arrangement

The year gone by, 2024, was plagued by chaos and confusion in the education sector. While the Supreme Court struck down board exams for classes 5, 8, 9, and 11, confusion continued over the implementation of several provisions of the National Education Policy 2020, even as the State Education Policy Commission has yet to submit its final report. Meanwhile, the class 10 results in the State saw a significant dip, and the Common Entrance Test (CET) counselling was plagued by a seat-blocking scam. The bright spot this year was that all students studying in government and aided schools began getting eggs six days a week.

Big dip in results

As announced in 2023, the State government successfully conducted three annual exams for classes 10 and II PUC in March-April 2024. However, the State government’s decision to conduct board exams for classes 5, 8, 9, and 11, reportedly to curb illegal schools, drew the ire of parents, educationists, schools, and courts alike. In a major embarrassment to the State government, the Supreme Court struck down board exams for these classes.

The Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) monitored all class 10 exam centres in the State through a webcasting portal for the first time in 2024 to avoid mass copying and other malpractices. This resulted in a significant dip in the results, with a decline of 30% compared to 2022-23. Following this, the State government decided to enhance the normalisation of scores, which benefited 1.7 lakh students. Even after this, the pass percentage declined by 10.49 percentage points, reaching 73.4%. Sources indicated that the actual pass percentage was down to 54%, but the decision to promote students by providing grace marks has drawn the ire of educationists.

Seat-blocking scam 

The Karnataka Common Entrance Test (CET) 2024 was marred by confusion as students alleged several questions across subjects were “out-of-syllabus” and demanded a re-exam. An expert committee appointed by the State government concluded that 50 questions, 20% of questions across all subjects combined, should not be considered for evaluation. However, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) argued that no question was “out-of-syllabus”. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was reportedly upset over this development.

Even as counselling for engineering courses began, a seat-blocking scam involving many reputed private engineering colleges came to light. Malleshwaram Police busted a 10-member gang, including a contractual employee of the KEA, for their alleged involvement in the scam.

The scam was uncovered when a senior KEA official noticed that 52 government engineering seats had been manipulated and blocked to benefit BMS Engineering College, Akash Institute of Engineering, and New Horizon Engineering College, allowing them to allot these seats under the management quota. These college authorities are also being investigated.

KEA has now proposed that the seats remaining vacant in the government quota of private engineering colleges after the final round should be filled by the KEA and not handed over to these colleges to curb seat blocking.

Meanwhile, the government rolled out free online coaching for 25,000 pre-university students from government and aided colleges to help them prepare for entrance exams like CET, NEET, and JEE, which serve as gateways to professional courses.

Three years degree courses reinstated

Following the recommendations of the State Education Policy (SEP) Commission’s interim report, the Karnataka government withdrew the four-year honours degree, which was part of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, from the academic year 2024-25 and reinstated the three-year degree programs that existed until the 2021-22 academic year. Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat, who leads the SEP Commission, is expected to submit its final report in February 2025.

Eggs six days a week

Eggs or their alternatives, bananas or groundnut chikkis, were distributed along with mid-day meals in government and aided schools two days a week after nutritional deficiencies in children were flagged following the pandemic. The Azim Premji Foundation pledged ₹1,500 crore over a three-year period to distribute eggs/bananas/chikkis six days a week during mid-day meals. This initiative began on September 15, 2024, benefiting around 55.26 lakh students from classes 1 to 10.