4 days Ago By Rishita Khanna
A day after Karnataka Minister Madhu Bangarappa announced a one-time relaxation of the age rule for Class I admissions, confusion triggered an uproar among parents, schools, and education stakeholders. While parents with children in international boards said they are at a disadvantage due to different global cut-off dates, other sections of the parents demand transparent policy for inter-state transfers, where age criteria differ. Meanwhile, education stakeholders pointed out that this relaxation unfairly affects the many schools and students who have followed the rules over the past three years.
They argued it’s wrong to reward those who ignored the rules while penalising those who did the right thing. Bangarappa’s clarification triggered confusion What particularly caused confusion among parents was the statement made by Madhu Bangarappa during Wednesday's press conference where he claimed that a 60-day grace period from the start of the academic year had always existed. Many parents said they are unsure whether this means the minimum age for Class I will effectively be 5 years and 10 months from 2026-27 and questioned why schools are not accepting if it existed.
When TNIE reached out to schools, some acknowledged this interpretation, others — citing technical blocks in the Student Achievement Tracking System (SATS) portal — rejected it. Moreover, the minister’s clarification that one time age relaxation only applies to schools under state board further created confusion with education stakeholders arguing that children across all boards follow the same SATS norms and that age criteria cannot vary by board within the same state. What do parents say? When The New Indian Express reached out to parents, they highlighted multiple concerns.
Ram, one of the parents, pointed out that just like this year’s UKG students who received the relaxation, there are children currently in LKG who will face the same problem next year. “They (current LKG batch) would have completed three years of pre-schooling — nursery, LKG and UKG — but will still fall short of six years as per the cut-off. If the age rule is not relaxed again next year, these kids will have to repeat UKG,” he said.
Prachi, whose child is currently in LKG, raised a concern about interstate transfers. “What happens if a child born in November and eligible for Grade 2 in another state — where the minimum age is 5.5 years) moves to Karnataka? Will they be forced to repeat due to differing state rules? This highlights the need for a uniform and long-term approach,” she said.
Some parents also called for systemic reform instead of a one-time fix. Shashank Deep, another parent, mentioned, “We need a general age relaxation for all kids already in the schooling system, from pre-nursery to UKG, and a clear policy across boards. Rules must be defined grade-wise and implemented through the portal,” he said, adding that the relaxation should apply to all boards with automatic SATS portal adjustments, not manual interventions.
Parents writes to SEP Commission Chief The parents also mentioned that they have written to the Chairman of the SEP Commission, Sukhadeo Thorat, requesting for exemption from age criteria for current LKG students (2024-25 batch). They have also urged the government to consider a similar relaxation in the age criteria as granted by other states, to ensure that current LKG children do not face obstacles during Class 1 admissions in the next academic year. They highlighted examples of states like Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Haryana that have already implemented age relaxations ranging from 2 to 10 months compared to Karnataka.
“The mentioned states have adjusted their age cut-off dates for admission to UKG and Class I to accommodate younger children without disrupting their academic continuity. Delhi offers a 10-month relaxation, with the age cut-off for UKG set at four years and for Class 1 at five years as of March 31, 2025 while Maharashtra gives a seven-month relaxation, setting the age cut-off at December 31, 2025,” they said, according to the report by The New Indian Express . KAMS oppose relaxation The Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) stressed that the relaxation would disrupt the efforts made by both schools and parents to comply with the existing regulations and highlighted that many children who were previously ineligible for Class 1 due to age restrictions were either held back or re-admitted to pre-primary classes to align with the age requirement.
It also argued that such a policy change would encourage fraudulent practices, with some parents already resorting to falsifying birth certificates to bypass the age requirement. The group also warned that relaxing the age requirement could have long-term effects on the national data systems, including SATS and UDISE+ as these systems are designed to track student progression and funding and that allowing younger children to start school would create discrepancies in national records, KAMS said..
