Bengaluru: Kannada will not be a compulsory subject in the degree courses offered by the state universities in the academic year 2015-16 which will start from June 1.

According to sources at the state higher education department, Kannada Development Authority (KDA) had proposed making Kannada as one of the compulsory subjects in the four semesters of general degree courses like B.A, B.Sc, B.Com, BBA, BCA etc, offered by the state universities. “But there are lot of practical problems to implement the proposal for the forthcoming academic year 2015-16,” said an officer.

“Lakhs of students from the neighboring states and countries are studying in the degree colleges of the state. So it is not proper to impose the language on them. Even the syllabus is not ready. The Board of Studies of all the universities need to meet and finalise the syllabus. So every one ruled out the possibility of implementing Kannada as a compulsory language in this academic year.” he explained.

The way forward: according to Mr. B Thimmegowda, VC, Bangalore University, presently two languages are taught in the first four semesters. “In BU, in the first four semesters, English is made as the mandatory subject. Students are allowed to select any language including Kannada, Hindi and Sanskrit as the second language. Now the proposal is that Kannada should also made compulsory,” he said.