Madhu Bangarappa, Karnataka’s Primary and Secondary Education Minister and Congress MLA from Shivamogga’s Soraba Assembly constituency, attended India Today’s ‘Mind Rocks’ event. He is also active in the Kannada film industry as a producer, distributor and actor. In a conversation with moderator Nagarjuna, he expressed his views on every issue from politics to cinema and answered questions. Madhu Bangarappa named Al Pacino and Kamal Haasan as his favorite actors.
When asked about his favourite actors and actresses from Kannada cinema, Bangarappa said that he himself comes from this film industry, so all the actors and actresses are his favourites. When asked about his important achievements as Education Minister, Madhu Bangarappa said, ’35 to 40 percent of the staff working in government educational institutions in our state comes from my department. There are about 46000 government schools for primary and secondary education in the entire state and about 7 to 8 thousand aided schools. My department is responsible for the salaries of teachers and employees working in all these schools.’
A lot of work was done to improve the level of education
Madhu Bangarappa said that about 57 lakh students study in these schools. If we include the students of private schools and students up to 12th standard, then about 1 crore 8 lakh students come under my department. Yes, there have been some problems regarding government schools in the past. But we have overcome these problems to a great extent and have done a lot of work to improve the level of education.
When asked that many times such pictures come in which the buildings of government schools are seen broken, there is no water in the toilets and many other problems are seen. On this Madhu Bangarappa said, ‘I want to say that when there are thousands of school buildings in the state, the media goes to one or two schools and shows the conditions there. I am not saying that these one or two schools are not important. But there may be some schools out of 46000 where there are such problems. It has been only 15 months since I took charge as a minister. Even in these 15 months, we have taken steps on a very large scale.’
Education budget has increased from 33000 crores to 47000 crores
Madhu Bangarappa said, ‘Before I became the minister, the budget of the department was Rs 33000 crore. In the interim budget, we got a budget of Rs 37000 crore, which has now reached Rs 44000 crore. We have also given the benefit of 7th Pay Commission to our staff. If we add this expenditure, the budget of the Primary and Secondary Education Department is Rs 50000 crore. You have to spend money for infrastructure building, it does not come for free. Apart from the budget received from the state government, my effort is to bring about development through CSR funds as well. Many people are also supporting. Karnataka Public School is very popular. Our Chief Minister has now made a rule that most of the CSR funds will be spent in the field of education.’
Madhu Bangarappa said that we are trying to collect CSR funds of Rs 2000 to 2500 crore in a year. We will increase the number of Karnataka public schools from the current 300 to 800. Currently, around 1000 to 1200 children study in one school. KPS is no less than any private school in terms of education and facilities. Our focus is on quality, equality and accessibility. Talking about politics, Bangarappa said that I want more and more youth to come into politics. When asked whether you are the son of former Chief Minister (Sare Koppa Bangarappa), so was it easy for you to come into politics?
The sanctity of examinations must be maintained at all costs
Madhu Bangarappa said, ‘Being the son of a former CM, it was easy for me to enter politics, but it is difficult to survive here. Being from a political family, I can enter politics easily, but I will have to succeed on my own. I have contested 9 elections, lost 7 and won only twice.’ On the question of paper leak, he said, ‘The sanctity of examinations should be maintained at all costs. The best way is that ministers should not interfere in the work of examination conducting agencies.’
What should be done so that children enjoy studying instead of finding it a burden? In response to this question, Madhu Bangarappa said, ‘School bags are a big burden for children. We have divided the text books into two parts. We have also made the books lighter. We have also declared every third Saturday of the month as Bagless Day. On this day, children have to come to school without bags.’ Instead of implementing the National Education Policy, the Karnataka government has said that it will make a State Education Policy. Why is this so? In response to this question, Madhu Bangarappa said, ‘In some cases, education is being saffronised. Therefore, we decided that we will implement such a curriculum in which children get to know as much as possible about Karnataka.’
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