BENGALURU: Out of around 8.42 lakh students who appeared in the 2024-25 SSLC examinations across Karnataka, 1,65,080 failed in the Kannada language paper.
Of these, 1,32,175 had Kannada as their first language, 30,913 as second language and 1,992 as third language.
In July 2025, a committee comprising educationists and language experts was formed under Kannada Development Authority (KDA) Chairman Professor Purushotham Bilimalle to study the reason for the students’ poor performance in Kannada language examination.
The panel is expected to submit a report soon to the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL), along with a set of recommendations.
Bilimalle told TNIE, “The reason for so many students failing in Kannada language examination is not revising the syllabus of textbooks, shortage of teachers with language teaching skills and lack of periodical skill training for them.
“Around 25% of the students failed in Kannada language last year in the state board exams. The pass percentage in Mysuru was 68% despite many students speaking Kannada as their mother tongue, whereas in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Karwar districts, the pass percentage was above 90%. It is surprising that children with Tulu, Beary, Konkani, Gouli and other languages as their mother tongues scored better,” the professor said.
About the stark difference in pass percentage between the two districts, Bilimalle said, “Either the Kannada textbooks are not right, or the teaching method is wrong. The state must teach the basics of Kannada in primary schools to strengthen their foundation. Teachers must be trained and assessed for their teaching methods. Only then can we prevent lakhs of students from failing in Kannada language exams.”
Niranjan Aardhya, an education expert in the committee, said, “The primary schools face a shortage of teachers with expertise in the language. In many schools, maths, science and social studies teachers are being forced to teach Kannada. Only when trained language teachers are appointed for the role, can we expect the children to have a good foundation in the language, translating into good results in the examinations.”
A Kannada teacher at Bannigola in Ballari said, “The reason for so many SSLC students failing in Kannada language is poor learning in primary classes. I teach students from Class 8 to 10. It is surprising that many Class 8 students do not even know how to write their names in Kannada. Therefore, this year, the department has introduced Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN), in which the first two months of language classes will comprise learning letters, two- and three-letter words, and then sentence construction. Despite all these efforts, students still fail in Kannada in SSLC.”
