May 18: One school, four languages and Bengali compulsory for all students - Bhavan's Gangabux Kanoria Vidyamandir has been practising this formula long before the state government announced its three-language policy for schools.

The English-medium school affiliated to the CBSE offers English as the first language, Bengali or Hindi as second and third language and Sanskrit as the fourth language to students of classes VI and VII.

Students who choose Bengali as second language have to study Hindi as third language and vice versa.

Education minister Partha Chatterjee recently announced a three-language formula for all students of classes I to X, leaving parents worried about how their children would cope with the change.

But Bhavan's principal Rekha Vaisya said the school has been offering four languages successfully for more than three decades. "We even give students the option of choosing Sanskrit as second language in Class VIII," she said. In Classes IV and V, Hindi or Bengali is the second language and Sanskrit the third language.

The government's announcement has sparked a debate on whether it will be feasible for ICSE and CBSE schools to make Bengali compulsory irrespective of the student's mother tongue.

Minister Chatterjee said today that the school education department is exploring ways to implement the three-language policy and to make Bengali compulsory. "The opinion of academics and language experts is being taken into consideration. But every school student in Bengal will have to learn Bengali," he said.

Chatterjee added that education department officials will soon submit a report to chief minister Mamata Banerjee in this regard.

Many fear that if Bengali is made compulsory, it will limit a student's choice of studying a foreign language, especially in CBSE schools.

Parents of Bhavan's students, too, feel the need for a foreign language. "My daughter would have benefited more if she could study Spanish or French, instead of Hindi, as third language," said the mother of a Class VII student.

But Vaisya said the school's emphasis was on Indian culture and language.