Bilingual sections in over 4k Karnataka schools approved for academic year 2025-26 | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: With an overwhelming demand for English medium, the department of school education and literacy has announced the opening of bilingual sections — English medium along with the existing Kannada medium — in 4,134 schools across the state.Of the total 1,465 govt schools in Bangalore North and Bangalore South, 1,103 have been given permission to start the sections. There are 730 schools in Bangalore South and 373 in Bangalore North from class 1.As many as 11,555 potential schools applied from 33 educational districts. The first 15 schools from each taluk with the highest student enrolment were selected. English-medium sections started under the HD Kumaraswamy regime in 2019-20. Since then, 2,405 schools have had English-medium sections, including Karnataka Public Schools. In 2024-25, 2,000 govt schools were permitted to open the new sections. The first batch is in class 7 now.The department will appoint guest lecturers for these sections. The teachers will be trained by the department of state educational, research and training and the Regional Institute of English before the commencement of classes.“Admissions are ongoing. Since many of the schools knew they were likely to get permission, they already got ready for it and started enrolling students. Since class 1 is the Nali Kali system, the children will not need textbooks,” said a senior official.However, educationists warned that the last-minute plans shouldn’t affect the training of teachers. “Many English teachers in govt schools aren’t specialists in English. They often face challenges related to fluency, confidence, and effective methods of teaching English. Teacher training and teacher mentoring are important in order to upskill teachers, to sensitise them towards curriculum changes, pedagogical and technological innovations, and help them update their knowledge and teaching practices,” said a teacher trainer.“Most guest teachers aren’t trained in English-medium sections. This is because every year, new teachers are appointed and there are no budget provisions for involving guest teachers in training programmes. Even if they are called for training, they aren’t given training material, food, or travel allowance. I hope this time there will be a change,” he added.
