BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Education Policy (SEP) Commission submitted its long-awaited report to the state government on Friday. Among its most significant recommendations is a two-language policy, Kannada or mother tongue along with English, for all schools, doing away with the Centre’s National Language Policy’s three-language formula.
The commission has recommended to the government to make Kannada or mother tongue the medium of instruction up to Class 5 in all boards. Commission chairman Sukhadeo Thorat submitted the first of the six-volume report to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah here.
A major structural change proposed is adoption of a 2+8+4 system — two years of pre-primary, eight years of primary, and four years of secondary education. The commission has proposed to extend the Right to Education (RTE) Act, currently applicable up to the age of 14, to 18 (4–18).
The report calls for making secondary education universal and building residential schools for migrant children.
The commission has stressed the need to bring government schools on par with Kendriya Vidyalayas. To ensure this, it has recommended to the government to end hiring of contract and guest teachers and put in place a separate regulatory authority for private schools.
End dependence on NCERT textbooks, develop CCSE: Panel
It has proposed to merge parallel governance structures in education into a single commissionerate, and convert the Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT) into an autonomous SCERT for curriculum research and development of teachers.
On curriculum reform, it has recommended to the government to end dependence on NCERT textbooks and to develop a state-specific Comprehensive Curriculum for School Education (CCSE).
Under higher education, academic structuring will undergo a major reform under the proposed 3+2 model for general education and 4+2 model for professional degrees. The policy retains flexibility for multiple entry and exit and recommends expanded credit limits (up to 160) to allow multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary study based on university boards of studies recommendations.
The commission has recommended to the government to allow students from any university of Karnataka to take up PG courses in its other universities, with 50% seats reserved under roster-based quotas. It has proposed compulsory second language courses for all degree programmes, which can be Kannada, mother tongue, Indian or foreign languages.