Teacher shortage poses challenge as DK rolls out bilingual education

Mangaluru: A severe shortage of teachers could hamper Dakshina Kannada (DK) district’s plan to introduce bilingual education in Kannada and English across all primary schools from the current academic year.The district is among 15 selected by the state govt for the rollout of the bilingual education model. However, education department officials said the transition would require significantly more teachers compared to the earlier Nali-Kali system.Under Nali-Kali, up to three teachers were sufficient for classes 1 to 5, depending upon student strength. With the new bilingual system, each class is expected to have a dedicated teacher, sharply increasing staffing requirements.Officials in Belthangady block said the shortage is likely to be severe. Last academic year, around 194 guest teachers were allotted for primary schools in the block, but the requirement this year is expected to rise to between 300 and 350 teachers.“Since the requirement is high, we need to see how the govt allocates guest teachers. Every block has a sanctioned strength and we cannot exceed it without govt approval. While bilingual education has long-term benefits, the transition itself comes with several challenges,” a block-level official said.A block education officer said the challenge is not limited to sanctioning additional posts, but also finding qualified candidates to fill those. According to the official, each block may require nearly 300 teachers this year, compared to about 150 guest faculty members engaged last year.“There is already difficulty in finding guest teachers. Those recruited will also require training before they are deployed,” the official said.Dakshina Kannada DIET principal Sadananda Poonja said a total of 1,541 teachers are required across the district to effectively implement bilingual education. He said teacher training programmes have already been conducted, with focus on communication skills.“In the coming days, block resource persons and cluster resource persons will also be trained to strengthen exposure to bilingual teaching methods,” he said.Meanwhile, the education department is still compiling the total district-wide requirement of guest teachers. DK DDPI Shashidhar GS said the final figure would soon be submitted to the govt for approval.