In Karnataka Minority Schools, 25% Seats Now Open For Any Minority Community

As per the new amendments made by the Department of Primary and Secondary Education on March 19, 2018, minority schools and educational institutions will be allowed to give admission to 25% students belonging to any religious and linguistic minority community. This came after many schools started applying for the minority status under the linguistic quota. Now the amendments are made in the rule of Karnataka Education Act 1983.

In the early July, the state government informed the High Court that National Public School (NPS) and 12 other schools in Karnataka could not be provided with minority status under the linguistic quota. After the whole fuzz, the state cabinet decided to relax the criteria for attaining minority quota. The changes were made in the rules which earlier bound the schools to admit 25% of a total number of students in an academic year belonging to a particular minority community under religious or linguistic quota.

The amendment in the rule will now make it easier for the schools to fulfill the requirements and get the minority tag. However, there is another criterion that is required to be met for attaining the tag. According to it 2/3 of management members must also belong to a particular minority community which established the institution.

According to the survey conducted and the reports, out of a total of 2121 minority schools, there are currently 1873 religious minority institutions and 248 linguistic minority schools in the state. This move will benefit many other schools and they will now be able to apply for the minority tag.

This amendment is going to benefit the schools that were struggling hard to get the linguistic minority status but were unable to do so due to less number of students from that particular community which set up the school. However, 25% seats now open for any minority community in the state of Karnataka will be beneficial and they will be able to get the tag.

One of the Department of Public Instruction officials told that every year number of schools apply for the minority status on the basis of religion or language. Many of it, claims to be a Malayali minority institution. However, these schools were unable to show the 25% students from a particular community. But with the amendment in the rule of Karnataka Education Act 1983, schools having 15% students from Malayali, 5% percent from Urdu and 5% from the community of Telugu will be fulfilling the conditions and can get the status of minority school.

On the other hand, many activists of Right to Education (RTE) act said that this tweak of rules is a big thread to RTE seats. As more number of schools will now come under the minority status and this would hamper the RTE quota seats because minority status schools are exempted to offer admission under RTE quota.