Bengaluru: Engineering courses offered in Kannada medium in the state have failed to attract any students for the sixth consecutive year.
Admissions for the undergraduate engineering courses have been concluded recently for the current academic year, and no student has opted for the course in the Kannada medium.
The situation was similar in the academic years 2024-25, 2023-24, 2022-23, 2021-22 and 2020-21.
In 2021-22, 10 students opted for the seats, but none of them reported to the colleges.
Even in the 2020-21 academic year, 17 students opted for the seats but did not report to the colleges. This was the same in 2022-23, where 30 students selected the seats, but none of them took admission.
Again in 2023-24, around 26 students opted, but later cancelled it, saying it was by mistake.
In 2024-25, one student opted and even reported to the college, but later, as he was the only student, the college authorities requested the university to switch his admission to the English medium following the request made by the student. The student was admitted to Mechanical Engineering.
In the year 2020-21, the higher education department decided to offer engineering education in Kannada medium, and three colleges, SJC Institute of Technology, Chikkaballapur and BKIT Bhalki and Maharaja Institute of Technology, Mysore came forward to offer the courses in Kannada medium.
As decided by the Visvesvaraya Technological University, Kannada medium engineering was offered only in Civil and Mechanical streams.
The decision to offer engineering education in a regional language was taken considering the recommendation by the National Education Policy (NEP).
However, now that the state has rejected the NEP and has its own policy, which is under scrutiny by the expert committees, the VTU officials feel that it is better to withdraw the same.
“In Tamil Nadu, it worked because they have reservations in jobs for those studying in the Kannada medium. Without such an incentive, no one will take up the course in Kannada here,” said a senior official of the university.