Khaleej Times
Indian state bans 800 schools for English teaching (Reuters)
20 September 2006
BANGALORE, India - An Indian state stripped more than 800 schools of their status on Wednesday for using English as a language of instruction.
The schools are mostly in India's southern IT hub of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state, officials said.
Language is a sensitive issue in south Indian where there is no common tongue. In the past, there have been violent protests over efforts to impose India's national language, Hindi.
In 1994, the Karnataka government allowed the opening of more than 6,000 schools on the condition that the medium of teaching should be the local Kannada language up to the primary level.
'Most of the schools were blatantly flouting the government policy by using English as a medium of instruction,' an education department official, who requested anonymity, said.
He said another 1,500 schools faced closure.
Kannada is one of India's 15 main languages.
Bangalore is home to more than 1,500 companies in the information technology and business services, and accounts for more than a third of India's $23 billion export industry that employs more than a million workers.