BENGALURU: In a significant relief to students, the Karnataka government on Friday announced that the third language paper in SSLC exams will not be allotted marks, but will be graded. It will also not be included in the total marks. The move comes after over 1.64 lakh students failed in the third language and of them, 1.48 lakh students flunked in Hindi in 2024-25.
The new system comes into effect from the current academic year, even as over 8 lakh students will appear for the third language exams on March 31. Calling an “urgent” press conference on Friday, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Madhu Bangarappa said, “From this year, we are introducing a grade system for third language instead of marks. Students will write the exam for 100 marks as usual and they will be given grades A, B, C and D. However, it will not be considered for total marks. The total marks henceforth will be 525 instead of 625.”
He said, “In other states, including Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, they teach only two languages in schools and students too write exams only for those two languages.
Only our state is teaching three languages in schools. For now, the grading system is limited to SSLC and the department will decide on other classes soon.” He asserted that students from Karnataka will be able to score better in SSLC and get jobs like people from other states.
Third language includes Hindi, Kannada, English, Arabic, Marathi, Urdu, Tulu, Konkani and Sanskrit. The government’s decision came after Kannada activists, including Kannada Rakshana Vedike, Kannada film producer and former president of Kannada Film Chamber and Commerce SaRa Govindu and others submitted a memorandum on Friday morning to Madhu.
They requested him to cancel the third language exam marks, especially Hindi, as many students failed in the subject and their percentage too got hit. This deprived them of getting seats in top colleges.
Two weeks ago, they had threatened to lay siege to exam centres if the Karnataka State Examination and Assessment Board did not cancel the exam. The board had written to the minister and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, seeking their intervention. Madhu said a policy will be brought in, considering factors like languages to be taught in Urdu medium schools, total number of schools where Kannada is also taught as a third language.