CBSE issues new guidelines for language instruction in colleges: All you need to know

The Central Board of Secondary Education, on Thursday, issued guidelines, putting a “renewed emphasis” that every one its affiliated colleges undertake the mom tongue or a well-recognized regional language as the first medium of instruction for early grades beginning this educational session (2025–26), beneath the new National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-2023).

The newest directive, NCF-2023 — issued as a part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 — locations sturdy emphasis on using “home languages” or mom tongue through the Foundational Stage (Pre-primary to Grade 2, ages 3–8), as per the official assertion.

What does CBSE’s directive say?

The Education Board’s newest directive has emphasised the next:

1. Mother tongue — R1

The directive has emphasised that the language most acquainted to the kid—ideally the mom tongue—ideally should be used as each the language of literacy and the medium of instruction (MoI) for all topics. This goals to construct sturdy foundational literacy and comprehension expertise by leveraging youngsters’s current linguistic and cultural information.

If implementing the mom tongue will not be possible due to components like classroom variety or lack of written custom, the coverage permits for R1 to be the State Language, offered it’s acquainted to the kid.

2. Bilingual strategy – R2

In addition to R1, youngsters may even be launched to R2, a second spoken language, regularly familiarising them with multilingual studying. However, formal literacy targets—resembling studying fluency, sentence development, and expression—will focus completely on R1 through the foundational years.

At the tip of Grade 2, college students are anticipated to learn fluently and comprehend texts in R1, and start writing easy sentences to describe their experiences and environment.

Options for Medium of Instruction in Preparatory Stage

For the Preparatory Stage (Grades 3-5), the directive said that at the least one language native to India will likely be supplied as an possibility for the medium of instruction(MoI) to all college students up to Grade 12. Schools are, accordingly, required to present this selection in all lessons beginning with the Preparatory Stage, if the first MoI will not be a language that’s native to India.

Here’s the round issued to all Heads of Schools Affiliated to CBSE: