Marathi mandatory for all boards schools from 2025

MUMBAI: The state government has announced that Marathi will be a compulsory core subject in all schools across management and boards, starting from academic year 2025-26. This decision marks the end of concessions previously given due to the pandemic, which had allowed schools to treat Marathi as a graded subject. The new order mandates that Marathi must be taught and evaluated as a core subject in schools across all medium and all boards in the state.
The government resolution (GR) issued on Friday stated that regardless of their medium of instruction, schools must follow the revised guidelines. Unlike the current system, which allowed for grading in certain cases, the evaluation of Marathi will now be done on a marks-based system. The government has clarified that this policy will be uniformly applied to ensure that the language is given due importance in schools.
From 2025-26 onwards, students will be required to appear for Marathi language exams, and their performance will be evaluated based on marks, rather than grades. This shift is part of the government’s broader efforts to promote the language across all mediums of instruction in the state.
In 2020, the Education department had first issued a government decision to make Marathi compulsory in all schools, irrespective of the board. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were allowed to treat the language as a graded subject, with concessions given to students in the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades during the academic years of 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25, respectively. The concessions will no longer apply once the new academic year begins in 2025.