Regional language education offered in 16% KVs, compulsory in Navodayas from Classes VI-IX: Centre

Five years after the Union government introduced the National Education Policy 2020, which brought flexibility in the three-language formula, government data tabled in Parliament on Monday (December 1, 2025) showed that a little over 16% of the Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs), run by the Central government, across the country offer regional language education in 10 languages.

Data submitted in the Lok Sabha on Monday by the Union Education Ministry showed that in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNV), also run by the Union government, a significantly higher proportion of schools offer regional language education in at least one of 18 “local languages”. However, this included Hindi in the list of local languages.

The local/regional language is included as a compulsory subject in all Navodaya Vidyalayas from Classes VI to IX, the government said.

While the data provided by the Ministry showed how many of these schools are teaching which languages, it did not specify in which States these schools were in.

The government was responding to a question by Trinamool Congress MP Sharmila Sarkar. It noted that there were 1,405 sanctioned KVs and 689 sanctioned JNVs across the country. Of these schools, 226 KVs offer regional language education in 10 languages – Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese, Bodo, Marathi, Bengali, and Manipuri.

As per policy, Hindi and English education are mandatory at KVs from Classes I to VIII. From Classes VI-VIII, Sanskrit is mandatorily added to this, and in Classes IX and X, students can choose any two between English, Hindi, and Sanskrit.

This comes amid the ongoing political discourse over the three-language formula prescribed in NEP 2020, which provides for ensuring that at least two of three languages taught to school students are Indian, wherever possible. 

Of the 226 KVs that offer regional language education, Punjabi is taught in most number of schools (55), followed by Kannada (48), Malayalam (42), Tamil (36), and Assamese (26). The other languages are taught in less than 10 KVs each. Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary said in the reply that the curriculum at KVs had been designed while keeping in mind that wards of transferrable Central government employees enroll in these schools and there are provisions to contractually hire language teachers provided at least 15 students opt for that language.

As for JNVs, the government data showed that 665 of the sanctioned schools teach at least one of 18 regional languages but of this, 315 schools were shown as teaching Hindi as a local language. Apart from this, the local language offered in most number of JNVs was Assamese (taught in 51 JNVs). The other 16 languages listed under “local languages” taught at JNVs were found to be taught at less than 30 schools each.