“Please note that French will no longer be offered as a language option in Class VI,” reads a notice issued by The Indian School in South Delhi to parents of Class 6 students. The notice says the three-language formula will be implemented for Class 6 students from this academic year, and the languages offered will be Hindi, Sanskrit and English. “We believe this change will promote multilingualism and cultural understanding among our students,” it adds.
The school is among several CBSE-affiliated schools that are discontinuing foreign languages as a third language option, beginning with Class 6 this year. CBSE’s new curriculum released earlier this month states that a third language (R3) will be made compulsory in Class 6 from the 2026-27 academic session, “ensuring that every learner studies at least two Indian languages.” The new scheme of studies has implications for the choice of languages.
“Two of these three languages must be languages native to India,” as per the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2023, says the curriculum. For CBSE schools that have English as the medium of instruction, English becomes the one language that is not native to India that they can teach, leaving no room for another foreign language like French or German. The NCFSE 2023, which has been developed in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, recommends that students study a third language in Classes 6-10.
Students who are in Class 6 in this academic session will be the first cohort to have a third language in Class 10 in 2030-31, with a school-based internal assessment for the subject. School principals note that foreign language options will effectively be “phased out” for all classes by 2030, which is when the current set of Class 6 students will be in Class 10. In a circular issued on April 9, CBSE directed heads of affiliated schools to ensure that the implementation of the third language in Class 6, as per the scheme of studies released earlier this month, is initiated within seven days. Schools were asked to begin teaching R3 from Class 6 immediately, using locally available books and material, while textbooks “will be made available shortly.”
Schools have been asked to finalise their chosen R3, and notify the Board’s regional offices, which will maintain a record of implementation, and the details of R3 options being offered in Class 6.
The circular informs schools that only the R3 options introduced in Class 6 by a school will be available as options in Classes 9-10 for that school.
Foreign language teachers face uncertainty
With the implementation of the new rules, schools that The Indian Express spoke to in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune say they have been grappling with the changes. On April 10, ITL Public School in Delhi’s Dwarka circulated options: English as ‘language 1’, Hindi as ‘language 2’, and Sanskrit, Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali or Marathi as ‘language 3’. The school will not offer French and German as third language options in Class 6 this year, said Sudha Acharya, the school principal.
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Language Choice
CBSE’s new curriculum states that a third language is compulsory in Class 6 from the 2026-27 session. As per the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023, two of the three languages must be native to India, leaving no room for foreign languages in English-medium schools.
Acharya said the school did not want to offer only Sanskrit, and hence decided to offer the four regional languages based on the findings of a language-mapping exercise at the school last year. French was a popular third language option. Of the 200 Class 7 students this year, 97 are learning French, 68 Sanskrit, and 35 German. The third language mandate does not affect students in Classes 7-10 this year, who can continue to study foreign languages as the second or third language. Since the new scheme of studies was announced only on April 2, Class 6 students have already purchased books for French and German, Acharya said. “We’ll do these foreign languages as a ‘club period’, and utilise the books.”
Tania Joshi, principal at The Indian School, also said the school may consider a club for foreign languages in Class 6. “We had lots of takers for French. In Class 7 now, around 70-80 students out of a batch of around 180-200 students have taken French,” she said.
Tagore International School in East of Kailash, Delhi, is considering online classes for French and German which are being discontinued in Class 6 this year. The school is offering only Sanskrit as the third language in Class 6. Schools are also dealing with the question of how foreign language teachers can be retained.
“Foreign language teachers will continue for four years. But to retain them after that, they will have to upskill. Doing a B.Ed, and taking the CTET (Central Teacher Eligibility Test) so they can teach other subjects is an option,” Acharya said. The school has two French and two German teachers.
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In states like Maharashtra, where Marathi is compulsory under local laws, one of the two Indian language slots also comes pre-decided. The second remains a choice, with most schools offering Hindi or Sanskrit. Dr Aparna Morris, principal of SPM Public English Medium School in Pune, said that CBSE’s thrust on Indian languages was a matter of pride. The school will discontinue German as the third language from this year onwards, but may offer it as an activity class. “For schools like us, wherein a sizable population was learning German, we are in a fix now. Should we offer it as an activity class or hobby class? The students want to appear for exams by the Goethe-Institut, they are trying for B1 or B2 level German. Because later on they probably want to pursue their studies in Germany. We also have highly qualified German teachers, we don’t know what to do with them. I hope CBSE also comes up with an advisory because there are many, many schools offering German,” she said.
In Mumbai, the transition has been relatively smoother for some schools, largely because they say they saw this coming.
Rajhans Vidyalaya in Mumbai’s Andheri is planning to offer German or Spanish as an additional skill class. “But that is not for another academic year or so. At this moment, the focus will be on effective implementation of the CBSE’s new three-language policy. This will include English and Hindi as compulsory languages and, considering state government’s rule, Marathi will be the third language. We will have to discontinue Sanskrit…,” said its principal, Ritu Dubey.
