A number of issues deriving from the country’s time-honoured system have been debated in various circles, mostly in fits and jerks, leaving the system to endure itself like the Rock of Gibraltar as it were. Education being in the concurrent list of the Nation’s Constitution, the 36 States and Union Territories have been making mostly cosmetic changes on and off leaving the system in a fluid state, least affected by the measures taken by the Ministry at the Centre with regard to the nuances such as content of text books, languages to be taught, medium of instruction, manner of conducting public and class examinations, not to speak of the terms of service of the teaching fraternity, even as the parents are clueless about the hierarchical differences among the marks scored by students in the qualifying examinations. While no issue has been debated to its logical end, the confusion on key issues remains like the river that flows finding its own course. Even a simple issue of the weight of the school bag is treated lightly although it was raised in the Parliament on a few occasions.
The public image of schools managed by State Governments, including Karnataka, being what it is, managements of private schools have earned higher rating of the quality of teaching, thus parents patronising private schools, no matter the fees under various names collected by those managements.
