Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Jun 18: More than half of June has already passed, and it has been 18 days since schools reopened for the new academic year. However, according to the Department of Public Instruction, around 20 government schools across Dakshina Kannada (DK) district have not recorded a single admission so far this academic year.
A total of 20 government schools have reported zero admissions. Officials said the admission process will continue until the end of June, and the number of students may still change, leading to slight variations in the count of schools with zero enrolment.
Representational image
The highest number of government schools with zero admissions is in the Sullia educational block, where seven institutions have not enrolled any students. In Mangaluru North, four schools have not received a single admission.
Mangaluru South has three such schools, while Moodbidri and Puttur have two schools each reporting zero admissions. No government school with zero enrolment has been reported from the Beltangady block.
Sumangala S Nayak, deputy project coordinator of Samagra Shikshana Karnataka (SSK), said the final list of schools with zero admissions will be finalised by June 30. Officials added that schools with no admissions may be temporarily closed until admissions resume.
Citing an example, Nayak said that a school in Sullia which had recorded zero admissions in the previous academic year has been reopened this year after receiving a few admissions. The department stated that it is yet to receive consolidated data regarding zero admissions in aided and unaided institutions for the current academic year.
Regarding aided Kannada-medium schools, officials said some managements are reluctant to continue operations due to poor financial conditions, lack of permanent teaching staff, and a preference for either closing the schools or shifting to English-medium or CBSE streams.
District statistics from the past five years reveal that a total of 90 primary and secondary schools recorded zero admissions and were subsequently closed. These included both aided and unaided institutions.