The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has done what few experienced examination boards would ever do: force the introduction of a subject in Grade 9 well after the academic year has begun, without textbooks ready or available, without ensuring an adequate number of teachers, and giving schools time only till June 30 to take all steps necessary, including updating the subject syllabus online and informing parents and students.
The CBSE has itself acknowledged these problems but insists that its circular of May 15 will hold. It introduced the third language (categorised as R3) and made it applicable from July 1 for Grade 9 students across all its nearly 33,360 schools. This begs the question: what is the great exigency, and what explains this pressure on 15-year-olds to reorient themselves to learn a third language in the academic year they started in April?
Burden on students questioned
The debate over teaching and learning the third language — and its contribution to a child’s development — is not the point here. Academic instruction in a third language is superfluous in most parts of India, where it is learnt through social interactions, the media and other networks; most children in southern, eastern and northeastern states are fluent in their mother tongues, English and, often, Hindi or local languages.
To that extent, foisting a third language in school, that too in Grade 9 with no preparatory groundwork done, is an unnecessary and senseless decision. Even if students must learn a third language in school, there is no plausible explanation for increasing the burden on Grade 9 students.
As many as 2.5 million students wrote the CBSE Grade 10 examination this February, which gives a fair idea of how widespread the impact of this ill-advised decision will be. The CBSE has, anyway, attuned its syllabus to the NEP to introduce it from Grade 6; these students will naturally progress to higher classes with the third language.
Political overtones fuel opposition
It may well be that the CBSE move is more aligned with the prevailing political agenda than driven by a purely pedagogical one in the best interests of Grade 9 students. Its way out of the problems created by this imposition is to have schools offer a language for which teachers and books are easily available — laughably, Grade 6 textbooks have been recommended to tide over this year — which in many parts of India happens to be Hindi.
It comes as no surprise, then, that resistance to the rule has been building up across the south, east and northeast of India, where Hindi imposition is an extremely volatile political issue.
The CBSE, if it keeps students’ interests and well-being at the core of this decision, must withdraw its May 15 circular without delay and put millions of students and parents, and thousands of teachers, at ease.
