K'taka announces new language policy

Karnataka has announced a new language policy. Now, English will be taught from Std I as a compulsory subject in all government, aided and unaided primary schools (Kannada medium) from the 2007 academic year.

Similarly, Kannada will be mandatorily taught in English medium schools from Std I.

The policy will be applicable to all schools imparting education under the Karnataka state secondary education syllabus. It does not cover the ICSE and CBSE schools.

In linguistic minority institutions, it is mandatory for students to study English from Std I and Kannada from Std III. Kannada was optional in these schools all these years.

The policy was cleared by the cabinet at a meeting on Saturday. Briefing reporters, primary and secondary education minister Basavaraja Horatti said the policy was aimed at promoting English from the primary school level.

"But we have taken safeguards to ensure that Kannada as a language is not undermined. Students will study both languages. We are yet take a decision on conducting exams for the two languages at the first standard."

He said there will large-scale recruitment of English language teachers to meet the demand.

"Besides, 6,000 teachers will be trained in English this year. A meeting of all the officials concerned will be convened soon to decide on whether textbooks should be introduced from the first standard or from the third standard to study English and Kannada," Horatti said.