Several private schools that registered as Kannada-medium schools, but used English as their medium of instruction due to State government’s 1994 language policy which enforced mother tongue or Kannada, hope the High Court order will help set the record straight.
Sources in the department also said the government was in the process of formulating the new language policy, which aims to make Kannada a compulsory subject in all private schools. But, they added that the first challenge was to identify the number of English-medium schools that on paper had Kannada medium permission. Data compiled by the department in this regard is ambiguous.
For instance, the District Information System for Education (DISE) 2014-2016 data states that there are only 453 English medium lower primary schools (classes 1 to 5) and 6,350 English medium higher primary schools (classes 1 to 7). This has been strongly contested by experts.
D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, says majority of 12,734 private schools are teaching in English medium, but the department’s data suggests that only nearly 6,800 schools are English medium. It is hard to believe that the remaining 6,000 odd schools run in Kannada medium.
He added that the private school associations would undertake a poster campaign to spread awareness about the constitutional rights of the parents and students. He alleged that the State’s language policy made it more difficult for poor and middle-class parents, who aspire for an English medium education for their wards.
Mohammad Mohsin, Commissioner for Public Instruction, said the department will now look into the latest order along with various court orders for deciding the norms and conditions before granting permission to new English medium schools
