In an move to address regional imbalance of educational development in Karnataka, the State government has decided to teach in English language along with Kannada from Class I in 872 government schools in the backward districts of Kalyana Karnataka region from the academic year 2024-25. These schools are part of the 1,419 government schools in the State where the government has decided to teach bilingually.
The decision was prompted by the poor performance of Kalyana Karnataka districts in the SSLC results. Data shows that seven of the 10 districts that have occupied the bottom rung in the SSLC results are from Kalyana Karnataka region.
Of the 10 districts that are top performers in SSLC results, eight are from Mysuru and Bengaluru division. Only Sirsi and Uttara Kannada are the two districts from other divisions that managed to do well.
Impact of bilingual teaching
The success of these districts is attributed to the bilingual (Kannada and English) education being imparted to the students in government schools. As per the data available, these successful districts have a minimum of 100 government schools and a maximum of 200 government schools with a bilingual teaching facility for every lakh students who are dependent on government schools. In other words, 600-700 students are dependent on each government school with a bilingual teaching facility in these districts.
In contrast, the Kalyana Karnataka region has less than 40 government schools with bilingual teaching facility for every lakh students dependent on government schools. In other words, 2,000-4,000 students are dependent on each government school with a bilingual teaching facility in the region.
Additional Commissioner of School Education (Kalaburagi Division) Akash Shankar said: “The government has decided to teach Kannada and English from Class 1 in 1,419 schools across the State. Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board under the chairmanship of Ajay Singh has joined the government efforts with its Akshara Avishkara scheme. As a result, we are going to start bilingual classes in 872 government schools in the Kalyana Karnataka region from the academic year of 2024-25,”
Already teaching English
As many as 3,083 government schools across the State are teaching in English medium from Class 1 to Class 10. However, Kalaburagi division, which has more than 12 lakh students, has only 418 schools. In contrast, the Bengaluru division, which has 10 lakh students, has 1,291 government English medium schools. Dharwad Division, which has over 14 lakh students, has only 503 government English medium schools, and Mysuru Division, which has around six lakh students, has 871 government English medium Schools.
In other words, for every lakh students dependent on government schools, Kalaburagi division has only 33 government English medium schools as compared to 139 in Mysuru division, 129 in Bengaluru division, and 36 in Dharwad division.
