Deepa Balakrishnan, Bangalore: A breather for 4,000 students including little Madhumallige today, the Karnataka government has decided to give 10 days to some 500 unaided private schools which were de-recognised for teaching English without permission, to switch to using Kannada as the medium of instruction.

“These schools get time till June15 to implement government policy on Kannada medium education. They have to pay fine to avoid de-recognition and they also have to teach Kannada medium from standard one,” says Primary Education Minister, Karnataka, Basavaraj Horatti.

The short lull in the war between English and Kannada has consumed educationists across the state for the past few months.

And it has led to a battle of wills between parents and the government who maintains the schools sought land on the condition they would teach children in Kannada.

Says a parent, Chidanand S, “When we come to private schools it is our will and wish to decide whether our child studies English or Kannada.”

"This is not correct. It is better to have both English and Kannada,” adds another parent, Sreenivas.

Madhumallige's father, SB Patil says that the government's position could harm his daughter’s future.

“If she studies in English her future will be better. They mostly use English in cities,” says Patil.

But having lost their fight in the state courts- Karnataka's English medium schools may have just run out of options.

The medium is the message said Marshall McLuhan and indeed for the more than 2,000 schools in Karnataka, the medium has brought with it a stern message.