IN THE COURT OF THE HON'BLE HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA

AT BANGALORE

W.P. No. ls7OBt2O1g

l.A, No. /2013

BETWEEN

The Registrar (Judiciat)

AND

Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka and Ors

IMPLEADING APPLICANT:

The Azim Premji Foundation

#134, Doddakannali

Sarjapur Road

Bangalore- 560035

Represented by its Chief Executive Officer

,...PETITIONER

...RESPONDENTS

LI'HE CONSTTTUTTON

The Applicant most respectfuily submits as follows:

1. The present application has been made by Applicant

Premji Foundation,,, seeking to implead itself as an

instant writ petition.

Foundation'Azim

intervener in the

2' The address of the Appricant Foundation for the purposes of court notices

and processes is that of its counser Ms. Jayna Kothari, D6, Dona cynthia

Apartments, 35 primrose Road, Bangalore _ 560 O2S.

mt organizatioP

set up with a vision to contribute to systemic changes in lndian education

that facilitates a just, equitabre, humane and sustainabre society. rt was

incorporated as non-profit company under section 25 of the companies

Act, 1956 and its Board of Directors comprise of eminent citizens such as:

a.Mr. Azim premji (Chairman, Wipro)

b.Mr. sharad chandra Behar (Former chief secretary, Govt. of Madhya

pradesh)

c' Mr. Rishad premji (Head - speciar projects, wipro Technorogies)

d. Mrs. Yasmeen premji (Director, Azim premji Foundation)

e. Mr. P M Sinha (Former Chairman, pepsi lndia) and

f. Mr. N. Vaghul (Former Chairman, lclCl)

4' lt is submitted that the Appricant Foundation has been operationar since

2001. ln the rast thirteen years the Appricant Foundation has initiated

several projects on education rerated reforms in rndia and has engaged

with over 2.5 miilion children in 20,000 schools across 16 states through

a committed workforce of over 750 professionals and hundreds of paid

volunteers. The Appricant Foundation,s initiatives are in the fierd of

education and ailied deveropment domains like hearth, nutrition,

livelihoods, governance and ecorogy, which have a criticar bearing on

education. Their work on education focuses mainry on the quarity of

education in rurar government schoors and in-depth research and impact

assessment.

5' lt is submitted that the Appricant Foundation has partnered with state

governments in improving the education delivery system and buirding

capacity across the government organizations. rt has herped severar state

governments to develop a cadre of professionals who can be effective

education administrators. This has been done by the ,,Azim premji state

and District rnstitutes" and exampres of the programs conducted by these

institutes incrude teacher education, education readership deveropment,

/)t(9/assessment reforms, community mobilization and tecnnotffdeployment' The institutes are currenfly operational in several districts inthe states of Bihar, chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Rajasthan,Andhra pradesh and puducherry.

6' The Applicant has also set up its own primary schools in some of thedistricts of chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Rajasthan since theyear 2012 and aims to set up many more schoors a, over the country.These schoors are run free of cost, and aimed at providing quarityeducation to the most disadvantaged chirdren from the community.

7' The Appricant Foundation has a vast quantum of experience in the field ofeducation and has undertaken important project in the rast ten years. TheAppricant Foundation has been invorved in deveroping chirdren,sworkbooks for a, 7g,ooo schoors of Rajasthan and adapted by Haryanafor the Government schools in that State.

8' rt is submitted that the Appricant Foundation has the requisite knowredgeof the RTE Act and is working on imprementation of the Act in Karnataka.The Appricant Foundation was impreaded as a party in the speciar reavepetition w.p. No,95 r2o1o inthe Hon,bre supreme cour( wherein the Rightof chirdren to Free and compursory Education Act, 200g (hereinafterreferred to as the "RTE Act") was charenegd and upherd. rn this regard, itsubmitted that the Appricant Foundation is we, aquainted with theprovisions of the RTE Act and has even estabrished a RTE hub under theLaw' Governance and Deveropment rnitiative (LGD,) at the Azim premjiUniversity,

9' rt is submitted that the Appricant has the experience in the educationsector to understand the comprexity of row retention rates of chirdren inschoors across Karnataka. rt is further respectfury submitted that thecha'enges faced in the imprementation of the RTE Act in generar, and the

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ctrallenges specific to the goar of preventing chirdren from droppi.P",school in particurar, are comprex and murti-faceted, and encompass awirle spectrum of issues, inter atia internar migration, economicdbparities, bureaucratic inefficiencies, probrems with infrastructure andthe sociar rearities of caste, crass and gender imbarances.'suchcfiallenges have no easy sorutions, and indeed for any sorution to beeffective, it is imperative that it be carefuily thought out and weildeliberated

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10'1 lt is submitted that among the education related initiatives, theApplicant Foundation has, independenfly, arready been invorved withnumerous ongoing attempts to formurate sotutions to the probrem of high

dropout rates, and has identified a set of concrete and meaningfurinterventions that may be made in this regard.

10.2 A recent study by uNEsco has praced rndia fourth from the bottom in

terms of the number of chirdren out-of-schoor. Though the number of out_

of-schoor chirdren has considerabty reduced from about 20 miilion in

2000 to 2.3 miilion in 2006, rndia stiil accounts for 1.62 miilion in2010-11. Universdrisation of erementary education thus, poses a formidabrecha,enge to rndia: the number of chirdren dropping out, not attgndingschool regurarry and never enroiled are immense. euarity of education ispoor, teachers are inadequately trained and have lack of motivation. Amajor concern shourd be towards enroring/retaining girrs/working

children of urban poor and children with special needs in schools.(suman sachdeva, "Education scenario and needs in rndia: Buirding aperspective for 2025"; A planning Commission document).

10'3 There are different reasons why there are drop_outs /out of schoor

children in government schoors. The reasons show that any sorution

(t )\_-,/devised should incrude all stakehorders incruding parents, arong with the

Government. ln the 64th round of the Nationar sampre survey report

(2007-2008), it shows that for 33% o'f the drop-outs, parents are not

interested in sending the chirdren and in 22% they don,t consider

education important which makes up 50% of chirdren not attending

schools.

r****e fur Egr*"r.Hri[Huint

)Qprn*:c*kssmffeffii,$x

10.4 Thus, as per this tabre, parents and famiries are a big reason for

children not being enrolled into schools. This table shows that close to

12% of non-enrorment is due to other reasons. Thus, any sorutions to

address such under-enrollment should take into account ail these

factors.

10.5 The Appricant Foundation arso conducted a research study in

Yadgir District, Karnataka in 2012, This study noted that a child,s

schooling, is influenced by several factors such as house hold factors,

socioeconomic factors and in-school factors. The data for the study was

collected during a campaign conducted in shorapur Block in June 2012.

It was carried out in 53 viilages serected through a systematic random

sampling. 773 children who were out of school were identified. (These

children were not in schoor since the previous academic yea(s) or not

planning to attend the school in the current year.) This meant that 17.4

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:€- :€it of the children were out of school in C,this Block in June 2012._,_:^g them,25 per cent had never enrolled. A substantial number:-::i'ed out after class r and the rest after compreting primaryschoor,,,f :. :r insights of the study were:

., . I ,,*," over 56 per cent of drop-out chitdren are girts.

7 r o€ proportion of children who drop out of schoor in grades 1_3 hasdropped by hall from 62% in 2OO7 to 31% in 2011. However, sincethere are dropouts from crass rand, even in 2010 and 2011 itshows that dropping out from primary classes continues to be aserious issue in this Block.

(iii)Non-compriance of norms and standards and insifficient number ofschools: Only two-thirds of the villages have

within s km. rn one_third o a secondary schoor

f primary schools, the teachers,strengthis insufficient. The schoor buirding is adequate in about two_thirds ofthe sample cases. Most of the schools have crfunctionaltoilets

__..vv,o rrirv€ Co[structed but non_

(iv)Mother's riteracy is the most important. rf the mother is riterate, it isnearry 2'5 times more rikery that her chird is in schoor (compared toa situation where the mother is not literate). Mother,s literacy isimportant in keeping chirdren in a crass ti, the end of an academicYear

(v) A chito from a BpL househord is 50 per cent ress rikery in schoorcompared to a situation where the family is not BpL.(A copy of the yadgir Dropout study is annexed ,";"; rro a marked asANNEXURE-A)

10'6 rhe rates of drop out chirdren in Karnataka as per the report of theState Government tifled ,,EDUCAT|ON in IGRNATAIG STATE, 2011-12A state -rever and District - wise Anaryticar Report,, issued by the saryaShiksha Abhiyaan _ Karnataka, are as follows:

r@)Table 18A * Bro,p"out ffiatss in $TATH frS1"N-{[

Saregory Luwsr Frimary Higher Frirnary { lnahages)

r. l:rildren 1.1S 4,353':,s nJl; 't.21 4.0$3'1s iAll) 1.17 4.64S 3 nili s.55 4.56

S3 LBoys) s.38 4.11S 3 :Girls) 0.74 d}"94

ST i ali) B.3S t). I '.}

ST {BOYS) 0"30 <(?ST (Girls) 0*43 s.7s

':.7 This table shows that drop-out rates of girls is higher than that of

boys in all categories. Further, the Highest drop-out rate in the system is

among SC girls, which shows that caste and gender do play a significant

role in education.

l l.INCENTIVE SCHEMES AND THEIR UTILISATION

10.1 The NSS 64th round (2007-2OOB), by the National Statistical

Organization under the Union Ministry of Statistics, shows the percentage

of students availing different types of incentive schemes for education. A

summary of the State wise data shows as follows:

Srnr*intffi {.}$-} ! frrr*sfn$+ sf rfir$ffiTr of n$r 5.}9 lrnn pffiriuins gluffrl *tl$rati+u ar*iliugdiffumut ryp*r of iue rutiv*s for mttr ci,lt*,tT

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rA:: ---s ihis study shows that in Karnataka only 7.1 %of students ^Y; €- :ash scholarship schemes and the majorityare only provided

*=- s-csidised books and mid-day meals.

I : ::ese studies show that there is a need to develop a diverse range of

s:-a:egies in order to ensure that children do not drop out of school and

:-a: rf they do, they are able to return to the formalized education system.

': : rs submitted that the Applicant is well positioned to contribute

:eaningfully to such an endeavour. It has the means to conduct a

research initiative aimed at analyzing the multiple causes of and

identifying possible solutions for the same. Moreover, the Applicant

Foundation is able to employ an inter-disciplinary approach to problem

solving that combines both quantitative and qualitative social research

with advances in information and communication technology.

14.|t is submitted that the Applicant Foundation is keen to work constructively

and in collaboration with, rather than in opposition to, the Government

and other parties interested in the matter at hand, so as to assist this

Hon'ble court in a meaningful dialogue with the aim of providing

meaningful solutions to the alarming problem of children dropping out of

schools. lt is reiterated that the Applicant Foundation possesses both the

requisite experience and the necessary resources to do so.

15.|t is therefore respectfully submitted that the Applicant is fit to be

impleaded in the present writ petition, inasmuch as it is actively involved

in research based interventions in the field of education, with the aim of

ensuring that the RTE Act is implemented successfully, and with

particular reference to the instant case, that programs and policies are put

in place to ensure that children do not drop out of school.

C'PartiestI b ssrnitted that no harm, loss or injury would be caused to the

b tte irctant petition if the Applicant Foundation is permitted to come on

mrd and ptace alt relevant facts and materials which are necessary for

h proper adjudication of the issues raised in the present Writ Petitign.

PRAYER

UfrCREFORE, in light of the above facts and circumstances, it is most

hrbly prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to:

A. Pass an order impleading the Azim Premji Foundation herein as an

lntervener in this Writ Petition and

B. Pass any such further orders as it may deem fit in the interest of

justice and equity.

Ptace: Bangalore

He: Counsel for the Applicant

X THE HIGH GOURT OF KARTNATAKA AT BANGALORE

w.P. NO. 15768t2019

t.A.NO.

(Judiciat)

of Karnataka and Ors

PETITIONER

RESPONDENTS

VERIFYING AFFIDAVIT

and therefore theJ E ertative of the Azim premji Foundation, No. 134 Doddakannahari, Sarjapurb4 Bangarore 560035, presenfly at Bangarore, do hereby soremnry affirm andilbm oath as follows;

t- I state that t am the rntervenor in this writ petition and r am we, aware ofthe facts and circumstances of the case and hence t am swearing to thisaffidavit.

I state that the submissions made in para 1 to rb of the accompanyingapplication are true and correct to the best of my knowredge, abirity,information and belief.

I state that Annexures A to _ are true copies of the originals.

The fucts stated above are true and correct to the best of my knowredge, abirity,rftrmation and faith.

tdrrtified by me \ {ll -./ N,4,Z\-,r ^

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