When the students of government schools in Gubbi in Tumakuru district finally received the material for their school uniforms for the present academic year, they were relieved. But this relief was short-lived as hundreds of students and their parents found the quality of school uniform material provided by the Department of Primary and Secondary Education to be substandard. The parents of children in Tumakuru, the home district of Primary and Secondary Education Minister BC Nagesh, immediately raised complaints about the quality of the material. According to them, it was too thin, sheer and unsuitable to be worn or even stitched, especially for girl students.
The quality of the uniform material was a concern shared by parents and school administrators in Mandya and Mysuru apart from Tumakuru. Following the initial complaints, the Department of School Education and Literacy sent the samples of the cloth to the Central Silk Technological Research Institute (CSTRI) based in Bengaluru for quality testing on September 20, 2022. The report issued by the CSTRI said that the fabric met all the tender requirements, leaving the parents fuming. The quality check report of the sample uniform materials seen by TNM showed the polyester material passed the tender criteria for weight per square metre, count of yarn, threads per inch for warp and weft and the composition.
The government has prescribed light blue polyester viscose and navy blue polyester cotton for classes 1 to 10. Girl students from Class 8 and up can use the material to stitch churidars. Schools in Karnataka opened on May 16 for the new academic year, but the students of government schools received their uniform sets only on September 4, due to the lack of funds in the Education Department for purchasing uniform material. The uniform material that was distributed in Gubbi was also distributed in other divisions of Tumakuru, Bengaluru Rural, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga and other divisions as per the Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI) in Tumakuru.
When TNM spoke to students in Chikkanahalli village in Gubbi, they admitted that they were reluctant to wear uniforms stitched with the new fabric. Divyashree, a Class 7 student, said she did not feel comfortable wearing it. “The school asks us to clothe our children properly and decently, how do we do that if this is the kind of material they are providing?” asked Ganga, a parent. Miffed by the poor quality uniforms, Divyashree’s father CG Lokesh had filed a complaint along with other parents and members of the School Development Monitoring Committee (SDMC) before the DDPI in Tumakuru. "This is the kind of material they’ve provided for our children. Who would like to wear a see-through uniform? I don’t want my children to wear that. This is very humiliating. Both boys and girls received the same quality of uniforms," he said.
Lokesh also wrote to Siddalingegowda, founder of World Human Rights Seva Kendra, Mavinakere, Tumakuru to help their cause. On October 14, Siddalingegowda filed a complaint with the Karnataka Lokayukta against Education Minister BC Nagesh, the Director of Public Instruction, the Commissioner for Public Instruction, the Principal Secretary of the Department of Primary and Secondary Education demanding an investigation into the quality of uniforms and action against officials responsible for it. A scientist from CSTRI and the Commissioner of Central Silk Board were also named in the complaint. When TNM visited CSTRI to check the uniform samples and to obtain the test results, an official who requested anonymity claimed that the samples sent for the quality check were different from the ones that the parents complained about and this was reflected in the results of the test. But the DDPI has maintained that the samples sent to CSTRI for testing were from Gubbi and Haveri.
Apart from the quality, parents also complained that the fabric provided was not enough to stitch a whole uniform and they had to buy additional material. "Some of us had to purchase extra cloth which was not of the same quality to stitch the uniforms which resulted in colour mismatch. It is an unpleasant experience for the children to wear these uniforms,” Ganga said.
Educationist VP Niranjanaradhya, told TNM that the officials lacked sensitisation and the right understanding and approach. “This is an issue that is not limited to only certain districts, it is a state-wide issue. The same materials are sent to schools all over the state. Just because complaints aren’t raised, it does not mean that issues don’t exist. Those who have agency and are articulate enough to raise the issue do it, but for a lot of the parents, this is an arduous task, and their priority is always their livelihood. One shouldn’t put the onus on the parents or even the children. It is the responsibility of the officials to ensure the quality is met,” he said.
He also said the burden of stitching uniform materials was a violation of the Right to Education Act. “The act asks us to provide all means for the children so that they can continue their education, but providing unstitched materials makes those who don’t have the means to stitch it, stay out of school. The children are entitled to their educational rights, for their school supplies, but the officials look at it as a charity because it's free. The first step is for the officials to acknowledge that it's their duty to provide free quality education and quality supplies to these children.” he added.
TNM spoke to teachers from government schools in Belagavi, Yadgir and Ramanagara, who confirmed that they had received a set of uniforms for the present academic year. A teacher in Ramanagara said that the uniforms distributed were of poor quality. “The uniforms are never up to the mark. The material supplied this year was also very thin. I haven't come across anyone who has raised a concern about this, mostly because the ones at fault are the higher government authorities and it is not easy to escalate the complaint from the school level to the higher level, especially for children of working-class parents, who don’t always have a platform to voice their concerns,” the teacher said. Parents in Gubbi pointed out that other supplies like bicycles, socks, and shoes have not been distributed for over three years.
On July 8, 2022, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai approved a proposal worth Rs 132 crores for the distribution of shoes and socks to school children. Lalitha Chandrashekar, an officer with the Education Department told TNM that the proposal to allocate funds for shoes and socks was raised in December 2021 before the academic year started, but it was not approved by the Finance Department. The state government’s budget after the pandemic was focused more on education programmes and building educational institutions and not on shoes, socks, uniforms, and bicycles, she said.
Kavita Ratna, an activist with The Concerned for Working Children, a non-profit organisation, told TNM that bicycles shouldn’t be cut from the state budget programme in the absence of reliable public transportation. She said, “Stopping the distribution of bicycles will lead to an increase in the number of students dropping out of education, an increase in child labour and child marriage,” Kavita also spoke about how the free distribution of sanitary napkins under the Shuchi Scheme, a menstrual hygiene programme covering adolescent girls studying at government schools in the State, was abruptly stopped. “If we are going to consider the education, health and safety of the students, these are the schemes that ensure children, especially girls, continue to go to school. If the state government keeps stopping these programmes under the pretext of saving money, the social cost of it will be too high,” she said.
Earlier in July this year, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education BC Nagesh faced criticism from the Congress party for his statement on students coming to schools for learning and not for shoes and socks, while answering questions on the delay in providing shoes and socks to children in government schools across the state.
Leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who had introduced the scheme to distribute shoes and socks, criticised the Minister’s comments in a series of tweets. “On one hand, the ruling party leaders and officers are looting the public money through 40% commission politics, and on the other hand, the BJP is playing with the future of innocent children by not giving textbooks, bicycles, shoes and socks. It was former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa who introduced the scheme to give bicycles to girl students. Is Basavaraj Bommai trying to sideline Yediyurappa by not continuing with the scheme?” Siddaramaiah asked.
CG Lokesh has now requested the Bommai government to conduct an inquiry to check if all the schemes are being implemented for the children in government schools. “It is from our taxpayers' money that they are providing these schemes. It is not charity. It doesn’t matter if there is a delay in providing the uniforms or other supplies, but please don’t humiliate us and our children by issuing such poor-quality materials.” he said.
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