Mumbai, May 22: A group of 19 individuals, including students, parents, and teachers, has challenged the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) Three Language Policy in the Supreme Court. The petition opposes the implementation of this policy for Class 9, which is set to take effect from the academic session 2026-27. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case next week.
On May 15, CBSE issued a circular mandating the Three Language Policy, which requires students in Class 9 and 10 to study three languages, including two Indian languages. The notification will come into effect on July 1, and students have until May 31 to select their third language.
The bench, led by Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi, will hear the case. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi is representing the parents. The decision could impact approximately 5 million students in Classes 9 and 10.
Petitioners argue that this decision contradicts CBSE’s earlier stance, which stated on April 9 that the third language rule would not apply to Class 9 students until the 2029-30 academic session. They claim that the decision is arbitrary and that CBSE and NCERT have acknowledged a lack of trained teachers and textbooks, yet are pressuring schools to implement the policy.
The petitioners emphasize that meaningful education does not merely involve adding a new subject, especially when the necessary infrastructure and trained teachers are lacking. They also assert that the circular goes against the spirit of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which states that no language should be imposed on any state or student.
Under the Three Language Policy, students must learn one Indian language, one foreign language, and one regional language. Schools are required to inform the board of their chosen third language by June 30.
CBSE has clarified that there will be no paper for the third language in this year’s Class 10 board exams, although students must still study it. Until new textbooks are available, Class 9 students will use the third language textbooks from Class 6.
The board has also instructed schools to provide local and state-level literature for study, including poems and short stories. CBSE is preparing textbooks in 19 languages for Class 6, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.
Maharashtra was the first state to implement the Three Language Policy last year, making Hindi mandatory for students from Class 1 to 5 in all Marathi and English medium schools.
The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, approved by the Indian government on July 29, 2020, represents a significant change in India’s education policy after 34 years, aiming to align the education system with the needs of the 21st century.