Karnataka passes amendment making Kannada or mother tongue mandatory as medium of instruction under RTE

BENGALURU: The Karnataka Assembly has passed an amendment to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009), making Kannada or the mother tongue mandatory as the medium of instruction in all schools covered by the act in the state. The consequence of this amendment, which comes into immediate effect, is that new English medium schools cannot be started.

However, minority schools, which do not come under the RTE Act, can have English medium classes. "This means the Hindu and the Kannadig a ch i l d ren in Karnataka are denied the right to education in English, while minority children and non-Kannadigas can study in English medium," advocate KV Dhananjay, who fought the case against the state government’s moves to mandate Kannada medium, filed by the Karnataka Unaided School Managements Association (KUSMA) up to the Supreme Court, told ET.

The state has explained its stand very clearly in the RTE (Karnataka Amendment) Bill, 2015. Contending that Article 21A of the Constitution has mandated that the state determines by law the medium of instruction in schools that provide free education, the Act says "the child cannot claim under Article 21 or Article 21A that he has a right to choose the medium of instruction in which education should be imparted to him by the state."