BENGALURU: Even as 19,000 students failed in Kannada as first language in SSLC exam-1 in 2025-26, a committee formed by the Kannada Development Authority to study the reasons behind this has recommended to reserve 25% of government jobs in Karnataka to children who have studied in Kannada medium.
“At least 25 percent of government jobs in Karnataka should be reserved for children who have studied in Kannada medium up to at least 10th standard in Karnataka and any part of the country. This will motivate students studying in Kannada medium,” the report stated.
KDA Chairman Prof Purushotham Bilimale submitted a report on ‘Reasons behind students failing in Kannada language and reforms to be made’ to the Minister of School Education and Literacy, Madhu Bangarappa on Thursday.
The committee headed by Dr Niranjanaradhya VP, Developmental Educationist, along with other language experts, have made a list of recommendations after going through the data in the past 10 years and visiting several schools across the state to assess students.
As per the report, lack of uniformity across the state and central curriculum, Kannada not being made mandatory at different levels of education, lack of compulsory tests to assess the learning outcome of the language from primary school, lack of incentives to students who excel in learning Kannada, Kannada language textbooks that are not favourable to language learning are some of the reasons behind children failing in Kannada.
The committee stated to abandon the three language policy to reduce the burden of learning three or more languages and adopt a bilingual policy.
All arrangements should be made to ensure that children learn and teach Kannada and English to a level of proficiency from the primary stage. Especially for language learning, teachers with proficiency, expertise, training and professional skills in the respective languages should be appointed from pre-primary onwards.
Incentives such as special scholarships, priority in the selection of further education, and priority in government jobs should be implemented for students who excel in the Kannada language subject.
The structure of the textbook should be given more priority to language learning instead of giving more priority to content. Language-based text should be created instead of content-based text. In addition, there should be activities that complement the children’s self-learning. When more emphasis is placed on language learning from the primary stage, children can’t fail in Kannada, the report stated.
Besides, the committee has urged the department to conduct a quantitative and qualitative research that should be conducted to prepare a report by including children who failed in 2025-26 and those who will fail in 2026-27. Kannada should be made mandatory at various levels of education, starting from Anganwadi, pre-primary level, and including graduation, professional courses, and regardless of the medium, the committee stated.