No takers for Kannada medium engineering course

Thirty candidates opted for Kannada medium during option entry, but none of them reported to the colleges. 

Not even a single student has opted for Kannada medium engineering courses for the third consecutive academic year in Karnataka, Deccan Herald reported. Three colleges -- SJC Institute of Technology, Chikkaballapura; Maharaja Institute of Technology, Mysuru; and Bheemanna Khandre Institute of Technology, Bidar, – offer engineering courses in Kannada medium, in the civil and mechanical streams. All 90 seats in the three colleges are still vacant.  

The Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) completed the admission process for undergraduate engineering courses for 2022-23 academic year recently and as per the data available, no one opted for engineering in Kannada medium.

According to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), there were 30 candidates who opted for Kannada medium engineering seats during option entry and they were allotted seats too. But, none of them reported to the colleges. Similar was the situation in 2021-22 and 2020-21 academic years.

During 2021-22, 10 students opted seats, but none of them got admissions. Even in 2020-21 academic year, 17 students opted seats, but did not report to the colleges. The Higher Education department decided to offer engineering education in Kannada medium from 2020-21 academic year.

Following the recommendation by the National Education Policy (NEP) to give priority to regional languages in higher education, the government decided to offer engineering education in Kannada, thinking that it would rescue students from the Kannada background.  

Translation work for 2nd year completed 

“Unless we give reservation in jobs, this initiative will not be fruitful,” VTU Vice-Chancellor S Vidyashankar said, adding that he would write to the government. VTU officials said that even the translation of syllabus to Kannada medium for the second-year course is almost done. 

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