The Union Government informed the Parliament yesterday, December 1, that regional-language instruction is being rolled out in a significant portion of the central government schools in India. According to recent data, about 16 per cent of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) schools now offer regional-language education.

Specifically, about 226 KVs across the nation have started teaching in regional languages, covering ten different languages: Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese, Bodo, Marathi, Bengali, and Manipuri.

The Union Government was responding to a question from Trinamool Congress MP Sharmila Sarkar. It reported that there were 1,405 sanctioned KVs and 689 sanctioned JNVs around the country.

Punjabi is taught in the majority of the 226 KVs that provide regional language instruction (55), followed by Kannada (48), Malayalam (42), Tamil (36), and Assamese (26). The remaining languages are taught in fewer than 10 KVs each.

Meanwhile, under the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), a larger rollout is underway: among its sanctioned schools, 665 Navodaya Vidyalayas already teach at least one of the eighteen recognised regional languages, The Hindu reports. However, Hindi is listed as one of the local languages taught in these schools.

From Class VI onwards, i.e. for Classes VI to IX, regional-language education will be made compulsory in Navodaya schools.

The Education Ministry's data stated how many of these institutions teach various languages, but it did not disclose which states these schools were in.

This update comes five years after the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) was introduced. NEP 2020 notably advocates for a three-language policy, in a bid to promote multilingualism in India.