Belagavi: Admission of students to government primary and secondary schools in Classes 1 to 10 has drastically fallen over the last two academic years in the state, going by Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Tanveer Sait.
Referring to the figures provided by the District Information System for Education (DISE), he informed the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday that while 4,864,509 students were admitted to classes 1 to 10 in government schools in 2014-15 , in 2015-16, the number had dipped to 4,745,846 and in 2016-17, the admissions had further fallen to 4,650,349.
Mr Sait blamed decrease in the birth ratio, accessibility of private schools, parents' inclination for English medium schools, and migration of families from villages to towns for the admission dip.
The Minister, who was replying to a question by Mr C.T.Ravi of the BJP, however, claimed the government had taken steps to bring back students to its schools and his department would conduct a survey in December to assess the dropout rate.
Mr Y.S.V. Datta of the JDS suggested the state government abolish the Right To Education system in schools based on the recommendation of KDA chairman, S.G. Siddaramaiah. But the Minister dismissed the idea saying every child had the right to get quality education and hit out at Mr Datta for politicising the issue.
