While the State government says the move aims to reduce dropout rates and create a single-campus model, the proposal has sparked fears of the gradual closure of neighbourhood government schools and creeping privatisation.
Published Dec 04, 2025 | 6:00 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 04, 2025 | 6:00 PM
This is not the first time that a merger of schools has been proposed in Karnataka.
Synopsis: The Karnataka government’s plan to merge select government schools into larger magnet schools, with the stated aim of reducing dropout rates and creating a single-campus model, has triggered strong opposition from parents and activists, who say it poses safety concerns. Experts warn the proposal could prove counterproductive and may in fact increase dropouts, and have also pointed to similarities with the contentious National Education Policy.
Savitramma, the mother of seven-year-old Rakesh, has stopped sending her son to school in Channapatna in Karnataka for the past few days.
For her, it is a form of protest against the Karnataka government’s decision to merge select government schools on a pilot basis. The move is part of a larger proposal to upgrade 800 government schools into Karnataka Public Schools (KPS) with better facilities at a cost of about ₹3,000 crore.
These schools, designated as ‘magnet’ schools, will offer education from pre-primary to Class 12 under one roof. Smaller schools within a radius of five to six kilometres will be merged with them.
While the State government says the move aims to reduce dropout rates and create a single-campus model, the proposal has sparked fears of the gradual closure of neighbourhood government schools and creeping privatisation.
Experts have also pointed to similarities between the proposal and the Union government’s National Education Policy, which the ruling Congress has long opposed.
The Minister for School Education and Literacy, Madhu Bangarappa, however, has maintained that not a single school will be shut.
Much of the opposition to the proposal stems from a deep distrust in the government’s ability to provide reliable transportation.
Geetha, another parent from Channapatna, worries she will not be able to afford the additional travel expenses once the merger goes ahead.
“Even earlier, the government had promised buses for our village. In the end, we had to depend on private vans and autos, which cost about Rs 700 a month,” she said.
The new school is five kilometres away from the earlier school that her ten-year-old child used to attend. She also fears that her child may not receive the same level of care and support, especially the provision of meals, that the current government school offers to its own small cohort of children.
Parents are also sceptical about the safety of children, particularly girls, who will now be required to travel longer distances instead of walking to a nearby school.
“She studies and plays with children I know well and trust. We have lived among their families for years. If travel becomes difficult, we may have to stop sending her altogether,” another parent said.
As part of a pilot project, the KPS school at Honganuru in Channapatna taluk of Bengaluru South district has been identified as a magnet school. Steps are now being taken to merge as many as seven Lower Primary Schools (LPS) and Higher Primary Schools (HPS) from nearby villages with it.
While education experts acknowledge that schools with enrolment below 20 students can reasonably be considered for merger, the government’s own circular indicates that the pilot project in Channapatna includes multiple schools well above this threshold.
The schools proposed to be merged under this pilot project include LPS in Hodike Hosahalli with 77 students, LPS in Kanni Doddi with 82 students, HPS in Ammalli Doddi with 31 students, HPS in Santhe Mogenahalli with 100 students, LPS in Mogenahalli Doddi with 20 students, LPS in Sunnaghatta with 80 students, and HPS in Channanke Gowdana Doddi with two students.
Several parents have questioned why schools with a healthy student strength are being shut down, further deepening their mistrust of the government.
“We have been pleading with officials not to close our school. We are confident of increasing student strength in the next academic year,” said another parent, Thimmegowda.
The State government, in its proposal for the merger of government schools, stated that the current dropout rate in lower primary is 2.50 percent, 2.91 percent in upper primary, and 22.88 percent in high school.
“It has been observed that there is a significant decrease in the number of students progressing from primary to high school. To reduce the dropout rate, it would be a good solution to provide education from primary to undergraduate classes in a single campus,” the proposal reads.
However, with Savitamma, along with several other parents in Channapatna, keeping their children out of school as a form of protest, experts are beginning to question whether the merger plan adequately accounts for the risk of increased dropouts due to longer travel distances and mobility challenges.
AIDSO said that what is really needed is to strengthen every government school by providing adequate teachers, infrastructure, learning material, and allowing democratic functioning.
Along with mergers, activists have also raised concerns of privatisation, with the Karnataka government preparing a policy requiring companies operating in the State to use their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for developing existing KPS schools or establishing new ones.
“Both these measures can cause outside interference in the administration of government schools. They (the schools) have been asked to portray name boards of the companies that are funding them, inside the school,” Abhaya said, referring to the KPS in Honganuru which is run by Kanva Foundation.
This is not the first time that a merger of schools has been proposed in Karnataka. The earlier BJP government in the State had proposed to merge 13,800 government schools to form model government schools. However, it was withdrawn after a widespread movement by education activists and experts.
A similar proposal was once again floated by the Congress government in the State in January 2025 as part of a ‘Hub and Spoke’ model, which involves merging government schools with low enrolment. The All India Democratic Students’ Organisation (AIDSO) held State-wide conventions to oppose the model, forcing its withdrawal. Now, activists say, it has been repurposed as the KPS magnet schools.
Experts also caution that the proposal mirrors the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020’s push for the “rationalisation” of schools. The policy aims to ensure that every school has an adequate number of counsellors or trained social workers, enough teachers to cover all subjects (shared or otherwise), and sufficient resources.
In a statement, the AIDSO accused the State government of centralising resources, thereby weakening and eliminating smaller and rural schools and undermining the existing public education system.
“The Karnataka Congress government had registered strong opposition to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which had also proposed a version of merger of schools. But their KPS magnet proposal is doing the same thing that the NEP aimed for,” Abhaya Diwakar, State vice-president of the AIDSO in Karnataka, told South First.
Calling it an “anti-people policy”, the organisation said it will inevitably lead to the closure and merger of thousands of functioning government schools, which will also mean denial of access to neighbourhood schools for those from poor and rural backgrounds and an increase in school dropouts.
One of the stated aims of the proposal is to build a “sense of community” by reducing the isolation of teachers, students, and schools through joint professional development programmes, shared teaching-learning materials, collaborative content creation, and common activities such as art and science exhibitions, sports meets, quizzes, debates, and fairs, the policy document says.
However, education expert Dr VP Niranjanaradhya, who has criticised both the NEP and the KPS merger proposal, argues that this very sense of community is lost when children are removed from their neighbourhood schools.
“Education at that age is not just about literacy, it is about learning values from the community around them. They have grown up around these neighbourhood schools which creates that sense of community,” Niranjanaradhya said.
The Karnataka Congress, however, has been opposing the NEP. It was one of the many poll promises made by the party ahead of the Assembly elections in the State in 2023.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka State Child Commission for Protection of Child Rights filed a suo motu case against the Education Department amid reports of existing government schools being closed down for the merger.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
