Since education is a subject under the Concurrent List of the Constitution, it is up to the respective State and Union Territory governments to decide on the modalities of implementing the three-language policy, in accordance with the spirit and recommendations of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary said in the Lok Sabha on Monday (July 21, 2025).
The policy emphasised the promotion of multilingualism and encourages States/UTs to adopt the three-language formula in a flexible manner, taking local needs, linguistic diversity, and implementation feasibility into consideration, the Minister said. In his reply to a query by Virudhunagar MP B. Manickam Tagore and Namakkal MP V.S. Matheswaran, Mr. Chaudhary cited a provision in the NEP 2020, which stated that the three-language formula would continue to be implemented, keeping in mind the Constitutional provisions, but that “there will be a greater flexibility in the three-language formula, and no language will be imposed on any State.”
The Minister further said the Government of India regularly consulted experts, linguists, State and national-level policy makers, curriculum developers and implementers, practising teachers and students, parents, teachers, teacher educators, parents, NGOs (and also students) working in the field of policy formulations and curriculum development.
“Prior to the formulation of the National Education Policy 2020 and National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023, a large number of stakeholders were consulted in person and also through digital means. All the regions/States were consulted and the opinions and practices of the various school systems were also taken into consideration for the making of the policy,” he said.
As a follow-up of NEP 2020, the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE), 2023, has been developed, and it provides a roadmap for the implementation of NEP 2020 on Languages Education in India, he said. “The NCF aims to make a student an independent speaker, reader, and writer in at least three languages denoted as R1, R2 and R3.”
While R1 was the first language in which students learn literacy, ideally their mother tongue or, if not feasible, the State language, which would be a familiar language, with proficiency expected by age 8, R2 was the second language distinct from R1, with proficiency to be achieved by age 11. R3 was the third language different from R1 and R2, with proficiency targeted by age 14, the Minister said.
