BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Minority Commission, in association with the Kannada Development Authority (KDA) and Urdu Academy, is set to train 180 madrasa teachers in Kannada. These teachers impart lessons to students in Arabic.
“The syllabus is designed by KDA for people interested in learning Kannada and using it in their daily life. The course needs 36 hours of investment by interested candidates. The Minorities department will fund teachers, whereas KDA will deploy teachers in district units,” said KDA Chairman Purushottam Bilimale.
He said there is a lot of interest in the Muslim community to learn Kannada, and there are already good writers from the community.
Minority Commission Chairman and retired IPS officer Nisar Ahmed, who is one of the think-tank members of the project, said the Urdu Academy has been tasked to translate syllabus to Kannada and help both teachers and students learn Kannada and use the language in their daily life.
“The initiative will first cover all district centres and later spread to other parts, depending on enrolments,” he said.
The pilot programme to teach students will begin on November 1, and depending on the response, will be extended to over 2,000 institutions across the state, coming under the Directorate of Minorities.
Lauding the initiative, chief imam of Bengaluru’s Jamia Masjid Maqsood Imran Rashadi said community members will have an advantage if they learn the state language.
“We will also bring about awareness about Kannada language and the initiative by the Minorities department to learn the language,” he said.
A senior KDA official said that so far, KDA was designing programmes to promote the language among non-Kannadigas from North India, and once the Urdu Academy completes translations, more Urdu speakers who do not know how to read or write Kannada will also get an opportunity to know the language and its importance.