Students till Class 4 should be taught only in mother-tongue: Tara Bhavalkar
Press Trust of India | June 24, 2025 | 08:48 PM IST | 1 min read
Tara Bhavalkar's views came in the light of the Maharashtra government's policy on including Hindi as the third language in Classes 1-5.
Mumbai: Students till Class four should be taught only in their mother-tongue, according to Tara Bhavalkar, president of the 98th All India Marathi Literary Conference. “At that age, a student’s physical and mental capacity should be taken into consideration,” Bhavalkar, 86, said.
Her remarks came amid growing opposition to Maharashtra government’s policy on including Hindi as “generally” the third language in Marathi and English medium schools from Classes 1 to 5 from the academic year 2025-26. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said that a final decision on the three-language formula will be taken only after comprehensive consultations with all stakeholders.
“Forcing other languages on these students at this age will be unjust and non-educational,” Bhavalkar said. Bhavalkar also opposed teaching students English language from first standard itself. “This leads to the student not understanding his mother-tongue and the foreign language,” she added.
Follow us for the latest education news on colleges and universities, admission, courses, exams, research, education policies, study abroad and more..
To get in touch, write to us at news@careers360.com.
Next Story
]Emergency made part of school syllabus during UPA rule, 3 decades after imposition
The Emergency was added to NCERT textbooks in 2007 under UPA rule. In 2023, key portions were removed under the BJP's syllabus revision, drawing criticism over dilution of its historical impact.
Press Trust of India | 1 min readFeatured News
]- Primary school teachers in Karnataka must serve 12 years before promotion, say new recruitment rules
- Experts propose 7 spots for university townships in education ministry’s post-budget webinar
- JNU, TISS Mumbai, BHU: Student unions vanish from universities with elections scrapped, councils taking over
- Students in University of Aberdeen, Mumbai, get credential exactly the same they’d get in Scotland: COO
- ‘IIMC to upgrade all journalism and mass communication courses to MA degrees, phase out PG diplomas’: VC
- Rebuilding Calcutta University: VC Ashutosh Ghosh’s priorities are recruitment, fixing finances, reforms
- PARAKH’s Foundational Learning Study 2026 to cover 1 lakh Class 3 students across 10,000 schools
- Telangana: Government Degree College Vikarabad moves out of school and into DIET campus
- ‘Shouldn’t open universities like shops’: Odisha higher education expands but students rue plummeting quality
- Dual degrees, faculty exchange: States bet on foreign university tie-ups, but fine print tells another story