Retired IAS officer M Madan Gopal, who also heads the National Education Policy 2020 implementation taskforce in Karnataka is among the 67 winners of the Karnataka Rajyotsava award that was bestowed on Tuesday.

Among the awardees who received the award on the state formation day is also former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, K Sivan. As against a previous tradition of picking awardees from a list of applicants, this year, the BJP-run state government constituted an expert panel to finalize. The award comprises a gold medal, citation, and cash prize of one lakh rupees.

Talking on the occasion, minister for school education and literature, B C Nagesh urged people of the state to use Kannada in their day-to-day lives to ensure the language lives on and is passed on to the future generations.

“Under the education department, over 1.15 crore students are catered to at various schools and colleges. If we taken their families into consideration, 4 crore people are associated. I urge parents and teachers to inculcate admiration towards the state, its culture and language. Schools play a key role in this.

“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years, it was not possible to have full fledged in-person classes. Students’ learning loss is being addressed in a model ‘Kalika Chetarike’ (bridge course) programme successfully. To address the infrastructure shortcomings in schools and save Kannada schools, 8,100 rooms have been constructed. Teacher appointments have been done to promote learning in Kannada medium. 100 primary schools have been upgraded to high schools. Of these, 80 are in the Kalyana Karnataka region. NEP implementation has been a milestone for better education. Implementation of the NEP will happen full-fledged in 2023-24. Kannada will be included in all stages of learning as proposed by the NEP,” Nagesh said.      

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