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.
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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.”
