CBSE schools struggle to retain foreign language teaching faculty after three-language policy

The Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) three-language rule for class 9 students, beginning July 1, has become a cause of worry for foreign language teachers and students.

While teachers fear job losses — with some already affected — students who opted for French, German, and Spanish are being forced to start learning a new Indian language from scratch. The primary rule mandates that at least two of the three languages must be native Indian languages, with English serving as the default medium of instruction (R1) in most English-medium schools.

According to the circular issued on May 15, students opting for a foreign language may do so only as the third language, after studying two native Indian languages, or as an additional fourth language.

Deepa Shridhar, director, Sri Kumaran Children’s Home Educational Council, explained, ”If there is no opportunity to learn a foreign language as the third language, it is an expensive affair for us to retain the teachers who teach French and German. Unfortunately, with this new policy in place, we had to let these teachers go. We have also informed parents whose children studied the French and German languages. They have agreed with our decision. Students studying German have a lot of options when they are in class 10. Their parents have requested that we provide them with some extra classes after school hours or during the weekends.”

On the other hand, some schools are working on a strategy to retain the foreign language teachers for other roles or even to teach the languages during weekends, similar to courses like Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, etc.

Shefali Tyagi, principal, National Public School, HSR Layout, said, “In our school, teachers teaching foreign languages will not be laid off. We are planning to retain them to teach foreign languages during weekends as extracurricular courses beyond the usual school curriculum. In addition to this, some of these teachers also teach other subjects like Social Science, Science, Maths and English.”

She also highlighted that the number of students who opted for French language in their school have reduced drastically this year. “There is also no clarity on the syllabus or curriculum on what has to be taught to students in a third language. The CBSE is likely to provide us with the necessary curriculum soon,” she said.

Manju Balasubramanyam, Delhi Public School, Bengaluru North, also spoke of similar plans.. “We do have plans to retain our foreign language teaching faculty because a fourth language will still be considered for board exams. In DPS, foreign language is taught in the hobby section for classes 6 to 8. Since the New Education Policy (NEP) in 2020, we saw this coming, and from then, we offered French and German as hobby courses and not as a second language for students in classes 6 to 8. Later, an entrance test was conducted, and if they cleared it, they were allowed to choose it as a second language in classes 9 and 10.”

She added, “There is a provision in the policy to evaluate the fourth language for board exams, unlike the third language, which has only internal assessment. The opportunity to learn a foreign language for students has decreased. I am hoping that at least for this year, there will be relaxation for class 9 students.”

The discussion around the three-language policy should not be viewed as foreign languages disappearing from the system, said Prathima Patel, principal at Ryan International Academy. “Even before the three-language policy was introduced in the system, few CBSE schools offered foreign languages to students. I believe that schools can meaningfully integrate them through forming various clubs, skill-based learning programmes, etc. At our school, we have introduced them as part of vocational programmes rather than core subjects. Interested students have opted to learn French and other languages. The number of children learning has also increased steadily in our school.”