Following strong objections, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has reinstated major languages ​​of southern states like Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, besides other languages, ​​that were earlier left out from the list of regional languages ​​in the draft policy on holding two board examinations for Class 10.

After the draft policy was published on the CBSE website on February 25, various stakeholders expressed strong opposition on X over the exclusion of Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and other languages ​​from the list of regional languages.

Waking up to the lapse, the CBSE issued a separate order on February 26 to continue Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and other languages ​​in the regional language list.

Amidst a controversy

This comes even as the imposition of Hindi and implementing the three-language formula in education has become a contentious issue in the southern states. Tamil Nadu has strongly opposed the three-language formula.

It was as per the recommendation of the National Education Policy (NEP-2020) that the Union Ministry of Education had decided to conduct two board examinations for Class 10 of CBSE and it released the draft policy in this regard, calling for feedback from stakeholders. March 9 is the final date to submit feedback.

In the draft policy, CBSE included English as Language-1 and Hindi as Language-2 in the list of subjects, and several other languages in the list of Regional and Foreign languages. However, it had dropped 14 languages, including major south Indian languages like Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu-Andhra Pradesh and other Indian languages like Punjabi, Odia and Assamese.

Many stakeholders from across India had expressed strong objections to this move by CBSE.

Subsequently, Sanyam Bhardwaj, Controller of Examination, CBSE, issued an order which read, “It is clarified that the list of other subjects and languages contained in the draft date sheet is only indicative and that all the subjects and languages as offered presently shall continue to be offered for 2025-26 as well.” It went on to say that in addition to those mentioned under the list of languages in the draft policy under the heading “Regional and Foreign languages group”, Punjabi, Russian, Nepali, Limboo, Lepcha, Sindhi, Malayalam, Odia, Assamese, Kannada, Kokborok, Telugu, Arabic and Persian “shall continue to be offered.”

‘Deliberate mischief’

Speaking to The Hindu, development educationist Niranjanaradhya V.P. alleged that it was “mischief by the CBSE Board” and shows lack of respect all the 22 national languages listed in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.

“The Board uses every opportunity to promote Hindi and Sanskrit and downplay all other languages. That is the hidden agenda of the three-language formula,” he said. He said that all CBSE schools in Karnataka should teach Kannada as second language as per the Kannada Learning Act, 2015. “As education is in the concurrent list, the Board should respect the law of the land,” he said.