BENGALURU: Bengaluru urban district will have the maximum number of English-medium government schools from the coming academic year. The Department of Primary and Secondary education has prepared a list of 1,000 government schools across the state where an English-medium section will be introduced from Class 1 onwards. Of these, 122 schools are in Bengaluru, which is the maximum allotted to one district.
As per data available from the department, the second highest number of schools are in Belagavi (73), while Kodagu district, which was hit by floods in 2018, has got eight schools, the least. Officials from the state Department of Public Instructions said they had sent a list of 2,000 schools to the government, of which 1,000 were selected.
“This selection has been done assembly constituency wise. Each constituency will get at least four schools,” explained a senior official.
Opening English-medium government schools in the state was announced by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy in the budget. This was opposed by pro-Kannada activists. The objection was raised even in the Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana held recently at Dharwad.
However, despite opposition from pro-Kannada activists, the CM stuck to his decision, and directed officials to start the process for setting up the schools. The department has also started training the teachers, and half of them have already received training from the Regional Institute of English, Mysuru.
Soon, the list of 1,000 schools will be put up on a public portal for parents to see. At these schools, NCERT textbooks will be used for teaching English and Environmental Science.