The Supreme Court has directed the CBSE to extend the same exemption from the three-language policy to Class 6 students as is already granted to students in Classes 7, 8, and 9. The Central Government had maintained that it was not in favor of granting an exemption to Class 6, noting that approximately 99% of CBSE schools are prepared to implement the policy. However, despite this, the Supreme Court directed that an exemption be granted to Class 6 students as well.
CBSE's three-language guidelines
- 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
- Relaxations during the transitional period and exemptions have been given below.
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.
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