The Karnataka government is taking steps towards providing Kannada-medium schools an infrastructure upgrade, minister for school education and literacy said in Mangaluru.

BC Nagesh was speaking at the Kannada Shala Makkala Habba organised by Keshava Smriti Samvardhana Samiti here, Nagesh said the two main problems in the Kannada-medium schools were shortage of teachers and lack of classrooms. “The state government is addressing these two issues,” he said.

The government, in one of its recent orders approved the appointment of 13,363 teachers, which includes three from third gender. These teachers will be on duty from January 2023 following completion of the process of scrutiny of documents and other formalities. The State government is going ahead with building 7,000 ‘Viveka’ classrooms in government schools.

“There is a certain mindset against the Kannada-medium schools. We need to overcome it,” he said, and added that though students want to come to these schools the mindset of the parents was preventing them from joining Kannada-medium schools. The Minister appreciated the work being done in Dakshina Kannada to save such schools.

Meanwhile, chairman of Alvas Education Foundation, Mohan Alva, said that private institutions should come forward to protect and open Kannada-medium schools. “If you give good facilities, people will definitely join Kannada-medium schools. An example is the Kannada school in our campus (in Moodbidri), which is attracting students from across the State,” he said.

The foundation is providing free education to these students by spending ₹1.2 lakh every year on each child, he said.

Source: The Hindu

Also read: Transgender teachers to be employed at government schools in Karnataka