The border district of Bidar has 650 vacancies of teachers, of which 210 are for Kannada teachers alone. The real issue is with vacancies in non-Kannada medium schools, mostly Urdu and Marathi schools.
While in other government schools any teacher can double as a Kannada teacher since it is also the medium of instruction, it cannot be done in these schools, say officials.
‘Cultural impediment’
“This is the biggest cultural impediment in this district,” said Suresh Channashetty, Kannada Sahitya Parishat district unit president. This is not just bad for advancing the cause of Kannada, but also an obstacle in the interaction between linguistic groups in this multicultural region, he says.
Ramesh Biradar, president of the district development forum, said successive governments had failed to give teachers to the district. “They were busy taking up civil works like roads and bridges, neglecting human resource development,” he said.
Deputy Commissioner Anurag Tewari said they were hiring 400 temporary teachers, training teachers in advanced teaching methods and exposing students to various refresher courses. “We have also sent several requests to the State government to appoint teachers,” he said.
