CISCE schools can continue to teach foreign languages as 3rd option: Board secretary

In the over 2,900 schools affiliated to the Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE), students can continue to study foreign languages as a third language, as they have done so far. For CISCE, English is compulsory.

On the sidelines of the declaration of the Class 10 ICSE and Class 12 ISC results, the board’s chief executive and secretary Joseph Emmanuel said the board is following “National Education Policy (NEP) in toto”.

The “three-language formula”, devised in the 1960s and endorsed by the NEP, requires school students to study two languages apart from the medium of instruction. Private, English-medium schools have for long offered foreign languages as the third language. However, recently, the government-run Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) policy, which allows only one of the three languages to be a foreign language, classified English as one. This has resulted in many schools offering only Sanskrit as the CBSE third language option and foreign language teachers across schools fearing for their jobs.

There are a total of 2,957 ICSE and 1,553 ISC schools affiliated to the board. This year, 2.58 lakh wrote the ICSE and 1.03 lakh, the ISC exams.

CISCE language policy

The schools affiliated to the board have already been following the three languages till class 8. English is compulsory but not treated as a foreign language. The second and third languages offered are up to the states and the schools.

“The board has given freedom to the states to follow as per their own policy. We don’t enforce,” said Emmanuel.

Class 9 onwards the schools follow two languages. At the senior secondary level – Class 12 or ISC, only one language is compulsory and the rest elective. The ICSE examinations are conducted in 20 Indian languages, 14 foreign languages and one classical language. The ISC examination is conducted in 13 Indian languages, two foreign languages and two classical languages.

State policy on school structure

Following the implementation of National Education Policy (NEP), schooling has been restructured into a “5+3+3+4” framework. It includes foundational, preparatory, middle, and secondary stages.

“The age for admission is defined but each state has their respective rules on it, so the board has given the freedom to schools to follow the state norm,” said Emmanuel.

He also added that the number of schools affiliated to the board is growing.