Will setup a Karnataka Public School in every Gram Panchayat: Edu Minister Madhu Bangarappa

Karnataka's Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Madhu Bangarappa, outlined his vision of setting up a Government-run Karnataka Public School in every gram Panchayat across the state, amounting to a total of nearly 6,000 such schools. Speaking at the 'WION AI Edu Summit 2026' in the state capital Bengaluru, Minister Bangarappa elaborated that there were 309 Karnataka Public Schools when he took over the portfolio, and that another 1,000 schools would be added in the coming years, with the eventual goal being a Karnataka Government-run public school in every Gram Panchayat.

The Karnataka Government began the Public School project from the year 2018-19, with a vision of providing quality education from pre-primary to class 12 with the administrative, academic and functional integration of existing schools. This is in line with the Government policy of “Every child should be in school and learn well”. Kannada and English medium of instruction have been adopted in these schools, where quality Education for children would be provied from LKG to PUC.

"At these Government-run Public schools, students can study from LKG to 12thgrade(for 14 years) in one premises and even go back home to their parents, as opposed to staying in Government hostels and being away from their families," Bangarappa said. He added that such Public schools made access to education easier for students in rural regions, where primary and secondary schools would be several kilometers apart, which makes it logistically challenging and time-consuming for the parents and students.

On the Congress Government's vision for adapting to AI, Bangarappa stated that Congress MP and India's Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had written to then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah about introducing AI in all schools. He outlined that the goal is to make AI available for the last child in a Government school. As part of this, he said that Karnataka had made computer education compulsory from Grade 1 and that this would students gear up for AI. Further, he also spoke about the efforts to install Smart Boards and Smart TVs in all schools, how 50pc of the schools in the state have moved to to Bi-lingual medium of instruction: Kannada and English. He also said that free tectbooks were being provided in both languages.

"The SSLC pass percentage in Karnataka was about 80% when I took over, back then webcasting of exams was not there... The sanctity of exams were compromised. To completely eradicate copying and malpractices, we were the first to introduce webcasting of exams and now the pass percentage has risen to 98% in the latest academic year," Bangarappa said.

However, he also acknowledged that his Ministry does face challenges ranging from lack of adequate teachers, lack of computers and other issues. To tackle this, he said that his Ministry is working on recruiting over 70,000 teaching faculty, while also taking efforts to provide access to computers for all Karantaka Public Schools. He also said that AI would be made accessible to all students across the Government-run schools and that these efforts would take time and adequate funding.