Bengaluru: The Education Department has set a deadline of three months for preschools and playschools across Karnataka to register with it, failing which they will be deemed illegal and face action, said Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait.

Following the case of alleged sexual assault on a child in a franchisee playschool in Bellandur, the government had passed an order making registration mandatory. The preschool chain, with over 600 branches across the State, was found to be unregistered. While registration was earlier optional, rules were changed to make it mandatory in February this year.

Speaking to reporters outside the Legislature Council where the issue of preschools was raised earlier, Mr. Tanveer Sait said the government was also planning to amend the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, to bring various forms of preschools under its ambit to ensure safety of children.

Fee regulation

Asked how all institutions that take children aged under six — including daycare centres and creches — can come within the ambit of the Act since many of them are not educational in nature, he said that it was possible since it also subsumes the question of the protection of child rights. He said that fee regulation will also be taken up seriously considering some of them were charging exorbitant sums.

While there was pressure to allow individuals to register preschools and playschools since many were doing it as a “hobby”, it could only be a “collective responsibility” through a trust or a society, the Minister said.

‘Malicious’ campaign?

While the focus of all discussion on preschools has been around the case of sexual assault following the Bellandur incident, M.D. Lakshminarayan, MLC, raised a question in the Legislative Council on what mechanism there was to protect schools which are being “deliberately maligned” by parents and others despite having good infrastructure.

While he made no mention of any particular school, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait, in his reply, made a direct reference and said the question was being raised in the context of the Bellandur playschool. Mr. Lakshminarayan then added that it was a top school. The Minister later clarified to reporters that there was no question of letting off any school if it is found guilty under the POCSO Act.

The Bellandur playschool, incidentally, is said to be run by the daughter of an MLC.