Bangalore, May 12: Students from outside Karnataka will have to learn Kannada in higher education courses, including professional streams like engineering and medicine.

The state's higher education council has accepted a recommendation from a panel of vice-chancellors of state universities that all such students learn basic Kannada in the first year of undergraduate studies. The decision has been taken as part of an initiative to introduce the students to the local culture and bridge the language gap.

However, the students will not have to appear for any exam in Kannada. Students of central institutions - like IIM Bangalore - will be exempt.

The language rule for undergraduate courses is expected to cover over 50,000 engineering students and around 5,000 medical students every year. Hundreds of students from Bengal enrol themselves in professional colleges in Karnataka.

"We have already sent the recommendation to the universities for their syndicates to decide when to start the course," S.A. Kori, executive director of the Karnataka State Higher Education Council, an umbrella authority, told The Telegraph today.

All state universities, Kori added, had informally agreed to start "mandatory" lessons in Kannada. But other subjects will continue to be taught in English.

In the past, students who travelled to the former Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe or Germany to study engineering also needed to learn the local language because classes were almost never in English. Today, with higher education evolving as a money-spinning industry across the world, English - even if just in its pidgin form - has increasingly emerged as the language of instruction in these countries.

H.S. Boralingiah, the head of the panel and a former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, said a "basic knowledge of Kannada would help medical students pursue their careers as communicating with the locals would become easy".

VTU registrar Jagannatha Reddy said the technological university had a few years ago tried to introduce Kannada as a subject for engineering students, but most colleges couldn't carry on with the course because it was not mandatory. "Now we are making it mandatory although there won't be any exams," he said.

Boralingiah said Kannada University had prepared two textbooks, one for local students and the other for those from outside the state. "The book for non-Karnataka students was specially designed to cater to new learners," he said. "Understanding the local language is essential to understand the local culture. That alone bridges the gap which exists now."

Simanta Sharma, vice-president of the Northeast India Welfare Society, a pan-India body headed by junior Union home minister Kiren Rijiju, said he backed the higher education council's decision. "I don't speak fluent Kannada although I have been living here for several years. That's why I support this move," he said.

In 2012, Sharma was among those who had submitted a memorandum to the state government to take pro-active steps to bridge the cultural gap between local residents and people from the Northeast.

That year, in the biggest such exodus from the state, lakhs of people from the Northeast had fled Bangalore following text messages threatening violence. "Such situations can be prevented if communities understand each other," Sharma said.

His only reservation about the decision was making Kannada a mandatory subject. "Medical students might find it useful as they have to interact with local people. But I am not fully convinced about other professional streams," Sharma said.

Mukesh Sharma, vice-president of the Assam Association Bangalore, said: "When I did my engineering in Delhi in the late 1980s, those who didn't pass Hindi in Class X had to take a basic course. Many south Indians had to take the exam."

The local people, he added, would "accept us better if we speak in their language".

Not everybody agreed. Indranil Bera, a city-based techie from Calcutta and father of a school-going girl, said no one lives in any particular state any more.

Bera, who has lived and worked in Calcutta before stints in Gurgaon, Chennai and the US, said English is accepted everywhere. "It is better if the government dropped such plans."