The hasty implementation of NEP has resulted in confusion and chaos during the start of the new academic year, especially among language teachers who now face the possibility of losing their jobs. With the implementation, students native to Karnataka will be required to study Kannada for their first year of college. Students coming from out of the state will be required to study functional Kannada for one semester, and have the option to choose another language for another semester in their first year.
The policy’s implementation has led to a drastic shortage of teaching hours for other language teachers. Teaching hours for Kannada teachers, however, have shot up. Numerous Bengaluru colleges are scrambling to hire staff to make up for the compulsory Kannada hours.
Francis D’Almeida, principal of Loyola Degree College, expressed his concerns on the implementation, saying, “While it is a step towards holistic education, it is detrimental to the management because of the difficulty in arranging Kannada lecturers.”
A few teachers had agreed to talk to The New Indian Express on the implementation on condition of anonymity. A Sanskrit professor said, “All our classes have been shuffled, there’s definitely a cutting short of hours. We’re paid on an hourly basis too, so our pay has been cut also.”
Four Sanskrit organisations, Samskrita Bharati (Karnataka) Trust, Mahavidyalaya Samskrita Pradhyapaka Sangha, Hayagriva Trust and Vyoma Linguistic Labs Foundation, filed a PIL in early October questioning the decision of the government to implement compulsory Kannada for students. As of October 26, Karnataka HC orally asked the state government to reconsider the decision with the next hearing scheduled for November 10. Failure for the government to reconsider will result in orders dated August 7, 2021, and September 15, 2021, to be stayed.
“So far we haven’t received any orders from the government to revise the decision,” said Prof B Thimme Gowda, vice-chairman of KSHEC. Speaking to The New Indian Express, Dr Shridhara Bhat, head of the Sanskrit department at SDM College, Ujire, and part of one of the petitioning organisations, said, “Freedom of selection of language should be given to the students. Compulsory Kannada curtails that freedom, so we’ve moved the PIL.”
