Bills seek to make Kannada compulsory

In a two-pronged move, the Karnataka government today introduced bills to make Kannada language a mandatory subject from classes one to ten in schools affiliated to the state board and also a compulsory medium of instruction from classes one to five.

The Kannada Language Learning Bill, 2015 seeks to make Kannada a mandatory subject in classes one to ten in all schools affiliated to the state board.

The bill amended Section 29 (2) of the Right To Education Act to change the provision "medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in mother's tongue" to "Kannada or mother tongue will be medium of instruction in primary schools" from classes to one to five.

The amendment would help the government in its arguments before the Supreme Court when the curative petition is taken up. The Supreme Court had rejected a revision petition filed by the state government seeking review of its ruling which upheld a Karnataka High Court judgement striking down an order issued by the state government in 1994 to impose Kannada or the mother tongue as a medium of instruction in primary schools.

The curative petition filed by the government is yet to be heard by the Supreme Court. The cabinet had on March 19 approved the proposed amendment bill before tabling it in the assembly. Yet another bill to amend the Karnataka State Civil Services (Regulation of Transfer of Teachers) Act, 2007 was also introduced, which seeks to increase the cap on teachers' transfer from the present 5 per cent to 8 per cent.