CBSE, ICSE schools in Karnataka now required to teach Kannada as first or second language

Bengaluru: A new set of rules notified by the government requires all private schools following the CBSE and ICSE curricula to teach Kannada as either the first or second language.

Schools are all set to oppose this even as the government has notified the Karnataka Education Institutions (Issue of No Objection Certificate and Control) Rules.

An NOC, issued by the department of school education, is a must for any new school or an existing school to get itself affiliated to CBSE or ICSE.

The new rules are in line with the Kannada Language Learning Act, 2015, which makes teaching Kannada as either first or second language mandatory in all schools.

Despite the 2015 law, the school education department granted no-objection certificates allowing schools to teach Kannada as second or third language. The new rules have corrected this 'anomaly', but most schools teach Kannada as the third language under the earlier provisions.

The 2015 law was made by the first Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in response to the landmark 2014 Supreme Court judgment striking down Kannada or mother tongue as medium of instruction.

As a group of parents has challenged the 2015 law before the High Court questioning its Constitutional validity.

M Srinivasan, president, Managements of Independent CBSE Schools Association, said, "Parents have filed a petition, which is still pending. Schools have no objection to teach Kannada, but not as first language. Let the government make it one of the three languages and leave it to the schools and parents to choose."

School managements argue that Bengaluru, being a cosmopolitan city, has migrant parents from other states whose children will struggle with mandatory Kannada learning as the first or second language. "It'll be a disadvantage for students coming from other states. Even if we forcefully teach them the language now, they will have to struggle in Class 10," one principal of an ICSE school said.

However, justifying the new rules, a senior official pointed out that the 2015 law is already in effect. "Under the Kannada Language Learning Act, it is already compulsory to teach Kannada as first or second language. We have incorporated this by amending the NOC rules," the official said.