The Maharashtra government has stayed its April 16 order that made Hindi a compulsory third language for students in Class 1 to Class 5 in Marathi and English medium schools, PTI quoted state School Education Minister Dada Bhuse as saying on Tuesday.

While the three-language policy would still take effect, students would not be required to study Hindi as their third language, The Indian Express quoted Bhuse as saying.

The three-language formula refers to teaching students English, Hindi and the native language of a state. It was introduced in the first National Education Policy in 1968 and was retained in the new policy introduced in 2020.

On April 16, the state government announced a plan to implement the 2020 National Education Policy from the academic year 2025-’26.

The plan made it compulsory for students in Class 1 to Class 5 in Marathi and English medium schools to learn Hindi as the third language. The policy’s three-language formula would have replaced the two-language structure in these schools.

The phased implementation of the plan was to begin with Class 1 in 2025-’26 and cover all classes by 2028-’29.

Opposition to NEP

The 2020 National Education Policy proposes major changes to the curricular structure for school education. It claims to promote flexibility in choosing academic streams and emphasises on using the mother tongue as a key medium of instruction in primary schools, among other measures.

The policy has been criticised for encouraging the privatisation of public institutions and creating several “exit” options for students, which opponents say could encourage dropouts.

Tamil Nadu has repeatedly opposed the three-language formula in the National Education Policy. The state government said it would not change its decades-old two-language policy of teaching students Tamil and English.

‘Insult to Marathi language’

On Sunday, a language consultation committee appointed by the Maharashtra government opposed the order.

Laxmikant Deshmukh, chairperson of the committee, had said in a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis that primary school students should be taught in their mother tongue and that the three-language policy should be implemented only at the higher secondary level.

Deshmukh also noted that the quality of Marathi and English language instruction was poor as most schools had only one or two teachers. “Introducing a third language will increase the burden of the teachers and in the process the possibility of learning one language properly will decrease,” the letter said.

The committee also said that many language scholars and linguists believed few states had suffered as much “linguistic and cultural damage” from Hindi as Maharashtra.

“If the people of North India do not learn Marathi as a third language, despite the linguistic similarity and are not ready to speak Marathi even in Maharashtra as a migrant, then it is an insult to the Marathi language and its speakers to make Hindi mandatory by the government,” said Deshmukh.

He added: “If we don’t want Maharashtra to suffer more in the linguistic and cultural field, the government should reconsider and cancel the decision to make Hindi language compulsory.”