NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday directed schools to start teaching third languages (R3) from Class VI “immediately” using locally available books and materials in line with the latest blueprint of studies.
This comes a week after CBSE on April 2 rolled out major reforms in its scheme of studies, making the third language compulsory in Class 6 from the ongoing academic session 2026-27 onwards. Class 6 students in the current academic session will be the first group to study a compulsory third language when they are in Class 10 in 2030-31. However, third language (R3) assessment will involve a school-level internal assessment in 2031, and not a board-level examination, according to the CBSE curriculum document.
In a circular dated April 9, CBSE asked schools to finalize and notify their regional offices in the third chosen language(s), and update it in the digital Online Affiliated Schools Information System (OASIS) portal. The relevant regional officers will keep a record of the implementation of R3 in schools under their jurisdiction and will liaise with schools shortly to collect details of the R3 options presented in Chapter 6.
“We have also been informed that R3 languages offered in Class 6 by the school only will be available as options in Classes 9 and 10 of that school,” reads the circular signed by Dr Pragya M Singh, Professor and Director (Academics).
Under the new CBSE syllabus for secondary schools released on April 2, language subjects will be organized into three levels – R1, R2 and R3 – as part of a trilingual structured model. R1 (Language 1) will be the student’s main or strongest language, studied at a higher level, and R2 (Language 2) is a different language, studied at a slightly different level. A third language (R3) will be compulsory from Class 6 starting this academic session 2026-27 and gradually extended to Class 10 by 2030-31. The languages selected at levels R1 and R2 will be different; The same language cannot be presented simultaneously at more than one level. According to the curriculum document, even when using the same textbook until separate language books are available for different levels, “the curriculum will be different for R1 and R2 levels and the assessment will also be different.”
The CBSE changes operationalize ideas that were first introduced as part of the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023 and are in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The NCFSE recommends that school students learn three languages from Class 6 to Class 10, which is different from the previous system where the third language was taught only from Classes 6 to 8. “As per the NCFSE-2023 recommendations, two of these three languages should be native languages in India,” states the CBSE syllabus.
During the webinar held on April 2 to launch the CBSE Studies Scheme, CBSE Academic Director Pragya Singh said that the scheme will be implemented on a large scale by 2030-31. “We will have one language at levels R1 and R2, and a second language at levels R1 and R2. So students can only choose one subject or one language at level R1 or R2 and they cannot choose the same subject at level R1 or R2. Language 3 will be at level R3 which will have an internal school-wide assessment.”
Explaining how the three-language formula will be implemented, Sudha Acharya, principal of Delhi-based ITL Public School, said there are 44 languages in CBSE’s list of language subjects including two official languages of India – English and Hindi.
“So, if my school chooses English as the first language at R1 level, it will choose Hindi as the second language at R2 level. So, if English is at R1 level, then Hindi should only be at R2 level and vice versa because we cannot offer two subjects at the same level. We have chosen four languages from different parts of India – Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali and Tamil – and Sanskrit as R3 (third language), so the children do not have to learn them “In Sanskrit, they can choose any language of their choice. While R1 and R2 will be tested in board exams, R3 will be assessed through school exams and CBSE will provide evaluation forms for the same soon,” she said.
