Supreme Court has urged centre not to introduce third language in Class 9. SC Justice B.V. Nagarathna lashed out at Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) saying that the introduction of third language in Class 9 will add to students' stress. The third language should be introduced in Class 6 and not in 9th, said the SC judge.
CBSE earlier issued clarifications over third language (R3) assessment. As per CBSE, students need to clear school-based evaluation to get Class 10 pass certificate from 2027-28, however, there will be no board exam for students. The students who could not clear the internal assessment will have to undergo a reassessment by their schools to receive the secondary school exam pass certificate.
“The third language (R3) will be assessed by the school through an internal school-based assessment only. The assessment criteria applicable to class IX (2026-27) & class X (2027-28), as given at point 'B' above, will also be applicable to these batches. There will be no CBSE Board examination for the third language when these batches progress to Class X," CBSE circular stated.
Two out of three languages must be Bhartiya Bhashas: CBSE
CBSE's earlier guideline on June 29 stated, "two out of the three languages opted for must be Bhartiya Bhashas. A non- native language can be opted for as the third language (R3), provided that the other two are Bhartiya Bhashas.”
For Class 10 students (2026-27)
Students in Class 10 will continue with the old system of two languages. No third language is required to be taken by this batch.
For Class 9 students (2026-27)
The students in Class 9 would study three languages, out of these, one would be Bhartiya Bhashas. The third language (R3) will be assessed by your school through an internal schoolbased assessment only. There will be no CBSE Board examination for this third language when this batch progresses to Class 10, 2027-28.
The Bhartiya Bhashas are - Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, etc. The non-native languages are - English, French, German, Arabic, Spanish, etc.
What is three-language formula?
As per the CBSE secondary school curriculum, language subjects will be organised into three levels - R1, R2 and R3. R1 (Language 1) will be student's main language, R2 is a different language and R3 (third language) will be compulsory from Class 6 starting this academic session 2026-27 and set to be fully operational up to Class 10 by 2030–31.
The languages chosen at R1 and R2 cannot be the same and should not be offered simultaneously at more than one level. "Languages include two official languages of India i.e. Hindi, English and 42 other languages. Thus, all scheduled languages listed in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India are being offered, in addition to other Indian regional languages and foreign languages," CBSE notification mentioned.
For details on CBSE three-language rule, please visit the official website - cbse.gov.in.
