Kannada medium schools face low enrolment as parents prefer bilingual options

Time of India

2 days ago

Mangaluru: Despite the success of Kannada-English bilingual schools in Dakshina Kannada, traditional Kannada medium schools on the same campuses continue to suffer from poor enrolment.
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As of now, the district has a total of 123 bilingual schools spread across all taluks.
According to officials, the majority of these Kannada medium schools have single-digit admissions to Class 1. This highlights a growing preference for English-integrated education in the district, posing a significant challenge to the future of Kannada medium instruction schools.
HR Eshwara, BEO, South, told TOI there is a growing demand for bilingual schools across the district since they teach both in Kannada and English.
However, parents have misunderstood that it is a purely English-medium school. As a result, there are few admissions to traditional Kannada medium schools with Kannada being the medium of instruction. The permissible admission to these bilingual schools in a batch for a year is 30.
There are instances where teachers ask the parents to admit their children into Kannada medium schools when they demand bilingual education.
It is done based on the teachers' evaluation of the child's academic strength. "Though the parents force teachers to admit them into the bilingual medium, teachers counsel them to join the Kannada medium as they are required to be part of Nali-Kali, a project to ensure early literacy competencies in Kannada language learning, basic numeracy, and environmental science.
The three-year Nali-Kali helps a child to equip themselves with academic knowledge.
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If the parent is unwilling, the teachers send them to admit them to a bilingual medium," said Eshwara.
BEOs pointed out that there is more demand for English medium schools, and it is leading to a rush at bilingual medium schools. Parents insist that their ward be admitted to these schools. "Soon, these Kannada medium schools on bilingual medium school campuses will shut down due to poor admissions. We cannot force parents to join Kannada medium schools, and teachers are helpless," said one of the BEOs.
On the other hand, many parents, especially from North Karnataka, prefer only Kannada-medium schools. Krishnappa said that while locals prefer bilingual medium schools, migrants from North Karnataka prefer only Kannada medium schools.
In the academic year 2019-20, a total of 48 bilingual schools were sanctioned for the first time, and it has 123, with three schools being permitted this academic year. The total admitted students in these schools is around 3,000.