Stakeholders reject idea to change school timings in Bengaluru in edu dept meeting



Bengaluru: All stakeholders who participated in the meeting held by the department of school education and literacy to discuss change in school timings rejected the proposal. This included the traffic department, BMTC, government, aided and unaided schools, teachers and parents.
The meeting was held at the Samagra Shikshana Karnataka office on Monday afternoon following a directive from the High Court to consider changing the school timings to tackle the traffic menace of the city. The hearing is again coming up in the court on Tuesday.
The department is likely to present the views put forth by the various departments and stakeholders on Monday at the hearing.
“Most of the departments and stakeholders were against the proposal to change timings. Traffic department was of the opinion that certain hotspots can be locally regulated instead of a blanket change in timings,” said Ritesh Kumar Singh, principal secretary, in a press conference after the meeting. The hotspots are Hebbal, Sarjapur, Adugodi, Silkboard and CBD.
Traffic police was represented by the joint commissioner M N Anucheth.
“While some of the private schools have their own buses, many budget schools do not. It was suggested that BMTC can ply buses that can be used by a group of schools. BMTC has agreed that it will look into the issue,” said Ritesh.
Yet another suggestion was the deployment of traffic wardens. “In many Western countries, parents act as Traffic wardens. They volunteer as a warden in the school where their ward studies. Traffic department said they would welcome more wardens for this,” the principal secretary said. It was also suggested that civic sense be made part of the curriculum for children.
The suggestion to change timings were met with stiff resistance from private schools. Currently many private schools start at 8am- 8.30am, while government schools start at 9.30am.





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