The year 2025 will be remembered as the year Karnataka adopted its own State Education Policy (SEP), rejecting the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020. This was a poll promise of the Congress party in 2023.The State government formed a committee under former University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Sukhdeo Thorat in October, 2023 to formulate an SEP, and the report was expected within five months. But after several extensions, the SEP report was finally submitted in August, 2025.The SEP-2025 has made several recommendations like discarding the three-language formula and adopting a two-language formula instead. It has also recommended Kannada/mother tongue as the medium of instruction in primary education sector, extending Right to Education till 18 years of age of the students, implementing reservation matrix in even private education institutes, among others.However, the SEP hasn't been implemented yet and it is hoped that it will be implemented from the academic year 2026-27. While the Higher Education Department has formed an experts committee to implement the SEP Commission’s recommendations pertaining to higher education, not even such an exercise has been initiated for school education yet.KPS magnet schoolsMeanwhile, the State government’s decision on KPS Magnet Schools turned controversial this year. The government has announced that it would develop 900 Karnataka Public School (KPS) magnet schools, which will have classes from preprimary to II PUC, across the State and of them 509 will be developed in 2025-27, using an Asian Development Bank loan. Each school will get a grant of ₹2 crore to ₹4 crore. These schools identified in each cluster using a scoring method based on grade coverage, enrolment, location and infrastructure, aims to have 1,200 students, with school van facility.However, what turned controversial was the decision to merge small government schools within a radius of 1 to 5 km and transfer all their teachers to KPS schools. As a pilot project, the government has already issued an order to merge seven schools in the vicinity with the KPS magnet school in Honganuru village of Channapatna taluk of Bengaluru South district. In addition, about 25,000 small schools are expected to be merged with the KPS schools across the State.This was being opposed tooth and nail by educationists, activists, parents and student organisations.4,056 pre-primary schoolsIn a similar vein, the State government is starting Early Child Care Education (ECCE – Pre-primary of LKG and UKG) in a total of 4,056 government schools across the State in the year 2025-26. Classes are expected to start in these schools in the academic year 2026-27. Lack of pre-primary classes in government schools is said to be one of the key reasons why parents send their children to private schools.Of these, the government has given permission to the Commissioner of Public Instruction to start pre-primary classes in 1,105 schools under the Samagra Shiksha Karnataka scheme, 126 PM Shri schools, 1,126 schools under the ‘Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB), and 1,699 KPS Magnet schools.First Foreign UniversityMeanwhile, the University of Liverpool from United Kingdom (U.K.), became the first foreign university to start its campus in Karnataka. They started their campus in Bengaluru.Imperial College of Landon and Lancaster University, both from the U.K., have already signed an agreement with the Karnataka government to set up their campuses in Bengaluru.Published - December 26, 2025 08:27 pm IST