Bilingual classes in more than 4k Karnataka schools sanctioned for academic year 2025-26

Overwhelming demand for English medium has prompted the department of school education and literacy to declare opening of bilingual sections — English medium and the current Kannada medium — in 4,134 schools in the state.

Out of the total 1,465 govt schools in Bangalore South and Bangalore North, 1,103 are permitted to open the sections. There are 373 schools in Bangalore North and 730 in Bangalore South from class 1.

Up to 11,555 possible schools applied from 33 educational regions. The top 15 schools in each taluk with the largest number of students were chosen. English-medium sections began under the HD Kumaraswamy administration in 2019-20. Since then, 2,405 schools have received English-medium sections, including Karnataka Public Schools. During the 2024-25 financial year, 2,000 govt schools were allowed to open the new sections. The first batch is in class 7 presently.

Guest lecturers will be appointed in these sections by the department. The teachers will be trained by the department of state educational, research and training and by the Regional Institute of English prior to the start of classes.

"Admissions are on. As many of the schools had an indication that they would be granted permission, they had already prepared for it and began to admit children. Since class 1 is the Nali Kali system, the children won't require textbooks," said a senior official.

But educationists cautioned that the eleventh-hour decisions should not be allowed to impact teacher training. "Most English teachers in govt schools are not English specialists. They struggle with fluency, confidence, and how to teach English properly. Teacher mentoring and teacher training are necessary to upgrade teachers, to make them sensitized towards curriculum reforms, pedagogical and technological advancements, and enable them to refresh their knowledge and teaching approaches," said a teacher trainer.

"Most guest teachers are not trained in English-medium sections. The reason being that new teachers are appointed every year and there are no provisions in the budget to include guest teachers in training programmes. Even if they are summoned for training, they are not provided with training material, food, or travel allowance. I hope this time there will be a change," he continued.