Following the High Court of Karnataka’s direction to the State government to receive application from a private school to start English medium primary school, other private schools have decided to step up pressure on the government to register the existing Kannada schools as English schools.
However, with the government set to file a curative petition in the Supreme Court — which had quashed the State’s language policy of 1994 making regional language/mother tongue the compulsory medium of instruction — there remains uncertainty over how the State would respond to these applications. In effect, school associations pointed out that the question was whether or not the State would implement the High Court’s ruling in spirit.
Mohammad Mohsin, Commissioner, Public Instruction, said each school would have to submit individual applications and they would be reviewed in consultation with the government.
Karnataka Unaided School Management’s Association (KUSMA) submitted a request to the Department of Public Instruction last month to register more than 1,300 schools imparting classes in English medium but had permission to conduct only Kannada-medium classes. “We will submit fresh applications by the month-end. If the government fails to accept them in a week, we will move a contempt petition,” said KUSMA advocate K.V. Dhananjay.
With the language policy stuck in courts for two decades, many State board schools are registered as Kannada-medium schools but impart lessons in English.