CBSE Tells Supreme Court: 47% Schools Offer 2 or More Indian Languages

AIMING to defend its policy on three languages before the Supreme Court, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday revealed that 47.3% of the total 28,848 schools affiliated to the Board already teach two or more native Indian languages to Class 9 students. As such, they are fully compliant with the three languages policy “without any additional teacher,” while 99.19% of the schools already have at least one Indian-language teacher.

The figures, provided in the counter affidavit filed by CBSE, along with affidavits by the Ministry of Education and NCERT, form the defense of the policy from the ongoing legal challenge from the parents and foreign language teachers. “Recognizing that there may be time required by schools to have full complement of teachers for teaching various Bhartiya Bhashas, the Board has allowed for flexible staffing as an interim arrangement,” CBSE said in its affidavit.

The petition, filed by parents from Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Chennai as well as some foreign language teachers, challenges CBSE’s May 15 circular mandating three languages for Class 9 students from July 1, 2026. The case will come up before the apex court on Tuesday.

According to the petitioners, the circular is illegal, arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 19, 21 and 21A of the Constitution and says that it “arbitrarily” reverses a notification issued by the same board just 36 days prior stating that “R3 (third language) is not applicable till the academic session 2029-30 at the Class 9 level”.

The petitioners say that CBSE wants schools to implement the policy when they have no textbooks, teachers or board’s assessment criteria, which is why students would have to refer Class 6 textbook to study their third language and use teachers of other subject who have “functional proficiency” in the foreign language concerned.

CBSE countered that the petition was overtaken by the later events and said that the implementation guidelines dated June 29 and July 10 clarification circular had “addressed” all the grievances of the petitioners, thus, making the primary relief sought by them unnecessary and “infructuous”.

Under the three-language policy, Class 9 students will now learn three languages with at least two being the Bhartiya Bhashas. However, as a one-time concession, students learning two foreign languages (example: English + French) can opt for any Bhartiya Bhasha.

CBSE also rebutted the basic premise of the challenge – foreign languages are being phased out of schools. “There is no prohibition on the study of a foreign language,” it says in the affidavit, adding that foreign language can still be learnt either as one of the three languages or as a fourth language. The petitioners “wrongly present conditional retention of foreign languages as elimination,” CBSE said in its affidavit.

NCERT said in a separate affidavit that it has undertaken “preparation, review, vetting, finalization and dissemination of textbooks in 22 Scheduled Languages in connection with the implementation of the framework for third language.” NCERT further stated that the Ministry of Education had formed a High-Powered Task Force in coordination with CBSE, NIOS and academic experts for speedy development of textbooks in the transition period of Class 9.

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