CBSE Urges Schools To Map Primary Students’ Mother Tongues 'At The Earliest'

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has asked all affiliated schools to start mapping primary students’ mother tongues “at the earliest” in a move to push the centre's decision to make teaching in the mother tongue compulsory at the primary level - and to align instructional materials before the summer break ends.

CBSE - country’s largest board of education - currently has english as its predominant language of teaching. The circular mentions that teaching in the mother tongue may “commence from July” - there’s buffer time if schools need more time. “However, care may be taken that the implementation is not inordinately delayed,” it says.

The board has also asked schools to provide monthly progress reports to it from July. “Schools may also be visited by academic observers for support and guidance,” the circular mentioned

“By the end of summer break, schools should achieve realignment of the curriculum and teaching materials to reflect the use of R1 as MoI (medium of instruction), and to ensure structured introduction of R2 at appropriate stage. Teacher orientation and training workshops should also be completed before the implementation begins, focusing on multilingual pedagogy, classroom strategies and language-sensitive assessment,” the circular further mentions.

R1 refers to the language that is ideally  the student’s mother tongue or the language the child is familiar with while R2  is the second language of instruction. 

Students in Classes 1 and 2 primarily study two languages and mathematics, The Indian Express reported, stating that teaching of mathematics can now be done in the mother tongue. 

A senior official in the Ministry of Education told the newspaper that NCERT’s textbooks for Classes 1 and 2 are available in 22 Indian languages, while translation for textbooks for higher classes is underway.

The circular has also asked all schools to form an ‘NCF implementation committee’ by the end of this month, to finish the mapping of the mother language team at the earliest.

The move is in the wake of the New Education Police, 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education, 2023, which employs usage of mother tongue in the formative years of the child - ideally till the age of eight - for a better learning experience.