Bengaluru: Students studying in classes five and six under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in the city are struggling to keep pace with their school work, as schools insist to replace their foreign language choices with Sanskrit and Kannada before the close of the academic year.
School authorities claim they this is being done in preparation for the board’s three-language policy, likely to come into effect in 2020. The CBSE board has thousands of schools in India and abroad under its ambit.
Although the proposal will be finalised and implemented only after 2020, several schools across Bengaluru have already got on board, asking students to give up their second foreign language. Popular choices such as French, Spanish and German are being replaced with Sanskrit and Kannada.
On December 21, 2016, the Union Human Resources Ministry and the CBSE board decided to make English and two Indian languages compulsory across affiliated schools, to be finalised and implemented after the Class X examination of 2020. Those taking the exam before the deadline can continue with the current arrangement.
Parents allege that schools have already begun implementing this policy for lower class students. "My daughter selected French. Now her school wants her to replace it with either Kannada or Sanskrit. We were also told that she needs to take an examination in April,” said a parent, whose daughter studies at a school in Vijayanagar. "I am not against local languages, but my daughter is still in Std VIII. She should have been allowed to wait until the next academic year,” she added.
At another school, Feb 28 was the deadline for parents to make the language choice. “Those who failed to comply had their children being punished in class,” said the mother of a Class 6 student.
Teachers have a different take on the matter. According to a school principal, the issue is to prepare students for the Class X final examination in 2020 in the same language. "There is no public examination till Class X or a retention policy either,” he said.
Manju Sharma, Principal, DPS South, said measures are being taken to ensure that the transition, if it takes place, is a smooth one for the affected students. “Grades five and six will be the first to take the exam post 2020,” she said.
