‘Welcome step, practical implementation difficult': Pune school principals on CBSE's teaching in mother tongue move

Indian Express

a day ago

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in a circular dated May 22, has instructed schools across the country to use the mother tongue or state language as the medium of instruction in the pre-primary to Class 5 stages.
While this is in line with the Centre's National Education Policy, 2020, as well as UNICEF and UNESCO's advocacy for education in the mother tongue, there are a few challenges to implementing this ambitious move.
The Indian Express spoke to principals of English-medium CBSE schools in Pune to get their views on this change and the obstacles they anticipate while enforcing this mandate.
What the CBSE circular says
Quoting the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2023, the circular states that the first language of literacy (R1) in schools should be the student's mother tongue.
However, if this is not possible due to classroom diversity, the state language can be used as R1, it adds, directing schools to begin implementing the change from this year onwards.
According to the CBSE's SARAS portal, there are 30,859 schools affiliated with the Board in the country. All of these schools are now required to create an NCF implementation committee by the end of May. This panel will be responsible for 'mapping student mother tongue, aligning language resources, and guiding curriculum adjustments'.
What schools say
Aditi Mukherjee, the principal of Billabong International School, Pune, enthusiastically supported the move by CBSE. 'I think this is a very welcome step because it has been long enough that we have followed English as a medium of instruction in different international schools, and in fact, schools in general,' she said.
After mapping students' mother tongues and understanding teacher competency in these languages, Mukherjee said the school will have to make a training calendar to 'capacity build teachers' in the school. 'And if we see that there is some requirement for, you know, external training or even recruitment, we have to do the same,' she added.
One of the challenges, Mukherjee said, would be that not all non-educators would agree with shifting the medium of education from English, the language of the elite, to a local language. 'I would also love to call upon our stakeholders, the children and the parents in particular, and have them as the third point of the pyramid. So, teachers, the leadership team and the board committee, as well as the parents, that would be the design,' she explained.
The NCERT already has textbooks in 22 languages, and teachers should be able to train themselves to teach in the required language and even create their own teaching resources, opined Mukherjee.
However, Nirmal Waddan, principal of The Kalyani School, Pune, envisioned greater challenges in implementing the move. 'I appreciate the CBSE's move on the language policy, but, unfortunately, there are many practical hindrances. In our school at least, we have children coming from diverse backgrounds. They are IT professionals who keep on shifting base, and they do not belong to a single mother tongue like Marathi or Telugu…So, we cannot cater to different mother tongues at the same time,' Waddan said.
Even if the medium of education is to be changed to the state language, like Marathi in Maharashtra, Waddan said it will be quite challenging for teachers. 'A teacher who is from North India, how will she know how to teach a child in Telugu or Kannada? Practically, it is not going to be possible to implement this circular to the T…Completely changing the medium is not possible. It will be bilingual in most of the schools,' she said.
Even though most of her teachers know Marathi, teaching in the language is a different game altogether, she explained. 'Core subjects like science and maths would be very, very challenging. Because there are certain words which have a proper meaning. I am born and brought up in Maharashtra, but even for me, it is going to be very difficult to explain in Marathi,' Waddan said. She said that even with training workshops for teachers, the shift in medium will still be quite challenging.
'I appreciate the main objective CBSE has behind this language policy circular and the NEP also…to make the children understand and get familiar with the basics…Learning outcomes will be better, I understand that completely. But practical implementation is very difficult,' she added.
Indira National School's principal, Arati Garampalli, expressed similar views. 'My personal opinion would not be completely shifting to a vernacular language. I would still prefer that they go on with English and side-by-side give an explanation in Marathi or any other local language…We have diverse people, I do not have only Maharashtrians here. I have Bengalis, North Indians, South Indians. South Indians don't even pick up Hindi easily. So imagine for Marathi, it would be more difficult,' she said.
'We have to look at our stakeholders, which are our students and also my staff. My staff should also be particularly very perfect in that vernacular language. When you are teaching in a language, you have to be perfect in that, you cannot just go on (casually),' she added.
However, Milind Naik, principal of Jnana Prabodhini School and a member of the steering committee for NEP implementation in Maharashtra, offered a different perspective and explained how the move might seem challenging, but is achievable.
He said that a majority of CBSE school teachers in Pune speak Marathi in their daily lives and are compelled to speak in English in schools.
'A majority of the teachers already know Marathi. So there might be a few, as less as say 10 per cent, who just do not know Marathi. So it is expected that the teachers must communicate in Marathi. That means schools do not require teachers who have mastery over Marathi but are fluent enough to talk, to communicate basic things with the students. So, all those teachers residing in Pune for the last two to three years must be able to do this. It is not so difficult,' he explained.
For other languages like Sindhi or Urdu, where teachers might not be easily available, Naik said, 'They (schools) have to try to get those teachers.
Otherwise, the students get affected. Many times, the children try to shift from the CBSE English-medium schools to a vernacular school. So if they do not want the students to drop out, then they must try to have multilingual teachers at their school.'
A major point of focus in the NEP is to address and improve the school dropout rate in the country.
Naik also explained that practical issues would not be unique to English-medium schools but also affect regional language schools. 'Marathi-medium schools from Maharashtra will also face the same problem. If the school is in the Konkan region or near Goa, then they (teachers) must know Konkani also. Or if it is around Amravati or Nagpur, they must know Ahirani, and all those local languages. So, Marathi-medium schools are also going to face the same problem…All schools have to take care of all these things,' he added.