CBSE move on mother tongue will enhance critical thinking: Pradhan

Bhubaneswar: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said the decision of the CBSE to use mother tongue as an optional medium of teaching up to Class XII will enhance critical thinking of the students.

Till now, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools have been using Hindi or English languages as a medium of teaching. However, in accordance with provisions of National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP-2020), which is emphasising on various Indian languages, the CBSE can now impart education to students in their mother tongue like Odia, Bengali, Telugu, Pradhan told reporters here.

Citing an example, he said, in Odisha, the CBSE school students can learn subjects like mathematics and environmental science in Odia. Learning through Odia language will be an optional for the students in addition to Hindi or English. The main objective of the move is that the students learn the subjects properly without any doubt and language should not be a barrier in learning, Pradhan said. If a student is taught in mother tongue, it will enhance his/her critical thinking. The CBSE schools will teach students in all languages recognised under the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution including Odia, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayali, Kannada in a phased manner, the Education Minister said.

In a circular dated July 21, the CBSE has allowed its affiliated schools to use their mother tongue as an optional medium of instruction from pre-primary to Class XII in addition to other existing options.This major step has been taken in accordance with New Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The Board has also asked the schools to explore available resources and consult with experts in the field to share best practices to make multilingual education in CBSE schools a reality.