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.

Even as the country’s public speakers, including those with suspect societal rating of their credentials to speak on any aspect of education are giving clarion calls to the parents at large for sending them to schools, the urban-rural divide on various parameters such as teacher-student ratio, infrastructure, parental interest in educating their children and so on is as wide as the ocean. Like a whiff of fresh air as it were, a Government School in the outskirts of Mysuru has shown the way recently in celebrating ‘No Bag Day’, an ambitious programme launched by Department of Public Instruction, Government of Karnataka, in collaboration with Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (GRAAM).

The students were engaged in activities related to civic responsibilities, under close observation of their teachers. The theme for the day was appropriately chosen as utilisation and maintenance of school buildings in the locality. The hands-on exercise carried out in the school merits to be emulated by schools across the country generating fond hopes of grooming the next generation on right lines.