Opinion Express View: CBSE directive to introduce teaching in mother tongue in primary classes — a wrong lesson plan

Indian education urgently needs to address a range of challenges: Equipping students with future-ready skills, improving learning outcomes and critical thinking skills, integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into classrooms, and closing the gap between academic learning and employability. At this time, the Centre’s push to mandate mother tongue-based instruction at the foundational level is potentially misdirected. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has instructed schools to map students’ mother tongues and design early-grade instructions around them by the end of the summer break. While this move aligns with the National Education Policy 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education’s advocacy of foundational learning in the home language, mother tongue, or regional language at least until Class II, it risks diverting attention and resources from far more critical priorities.

The pedagogical value of foundational literacy in a familiar language is well established, but in certain contexts. International models, from Ethiopia to the Philippines, and local experiments, such as Odisha’s successful 2006 mother tongue-based multilingual education pilot programme, validate the benefits of this approach. However, these models often operate in relatively homogeneous linguistic settings or are tightly focused on marginalised groups. Applying the same logic uniformly across India’s vast multilingual CBSE ecosystem introduces significant complexities. In cities and towns where classrooms host students from a wide array of linguistic backgrounds, the logistics of assigning instructions by mother tongue or home language are deeply problematic. They raise practical questions — how should a classroom with multiple languages be managed? Which language should be prioritised? Trained personnel, multilingual teaching resources and dynamic classroom strategies continue to be in short supply. The result could be inconsistent, confused, and uneven learning experiences — the opposite of what foundational education requires.

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The move risks sidelining an even more urgent national conversation: How to adapt the classroom to the realities of rapid technological changes and geopolitical churn. While the world races to integrate AI into pedagogy, enhance digital literacy, and prepare students for jobs that don’t yet exist, India’s education system is at risk of being bogged down in language politics. For better or worse, English remains the language of aspiration, global communication, and economic mobility for millions of Indian families. An inflexible emphasis on mother-tongue instruction could set back long-term prospects for students, especially those from economically weaker sections for whom an English-medium education remains key to social advancement. In West Bengal, for instance, the Left Front government’s rigid implementation of Bengali-medium primary education in government schools in the 1980s left generations with poor English proficiency. This became a disadvantage in white-collar employment, forcing a policy reversal in later years. In a country of India’s diversity, any pedagogical shift, especially those directed at early learners, must be well thought out. The CBSE’s move, without addressing deeper systemic needs, risks derailing India’s educational progress. Policymakers must focus on what matters most: Building a modern, inclusive and intuitive education system that prepares students for the world they will inherit.