• The Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) on Friday issued a circular making it mandatory for all autonomous engineering colleges affiliated to VTU to compulsorily teach a Kannada language course for B.E, B.Tech, B.Planning and B.Arch students.
• The revised circular was issued on the direction of the Kannada Development Authority. Earlier in August, VTU had announced that only government colleges under VTU will have the mandatory Kannada lessons. 
• According to the circular, Kannada will be made a compulsory credit course for first year B.Arch students, 3rd semester students in the B.Planning and B.E/B.Tech programmes starting from 2020-21 academic year.
• The Kannada course will also be mandatory for lateral entry third year students of B.Planning, B.E and B.Tech. This means that third year students in the 2020-21 academic year will also have to study the course. 
• “Kannada Language shall be a head of passing and shall be considered for the vertical progression of students from an even semester to the subsequent odd semester,”’ the circular states. 
• The Karnataka Government’s Textbook Committee has prepared textbooks titled ‘Samskruthika Kannada’ and ‘Balake Kannada’. Samskrutika Kannada will be the textbook prescribed for students who can speak, read and write Kannada. Balake Kannada will be the textbook for students who do not understand the Kannada language. 
• “Only these books are to be prescribed as textbooks. The soft copy of the books shall be made available in the first week of September 2020 and the hard copies published by Prasaraanga of VTU Belagavi will be distributed later,” the circular added. 
• VTU has requested all autonomous colleges to make necessary changes in their course structure starting from the 2020-21 academic year. “All the autonomous colleges are requested to upload the scheme of teaching and examinations with the Kannada course incorporated for all the 4 years of Engineering and B.Plan programmes, and 5 years of architecture programme,” the circular states. 
• VTU Vice Chancellor D Karidasappa said that engineering students must obtain 175 credits to successfully complete their course and Kannada language would also carry credit points.
• “This course aims at teaching Kannada for students who do not know the language well. There are two textbooks. For those who have already learned Kannada in school, an advanced level book has been prepared. For those who don’t know Kannada, we will teach them from the beginning starting from the alphabet,” he added.