Maharashtra State Board explained, for parents

Three bodies, three jobs.

• MSCERT - the Maharashtra State Council of Educational Research and Training - sets the curriculum, the syllabus and the learning outcomes, and trains teachers. It began life as a State Institute of Education in 1964, was upgraded and given its present name in 1984, and was redesignated a Vidya Pradhikaran - an educational authority - in 2016. Its own site describes its remit as curriculum development, textbook development and setting benchmarks for educational quality.
• Balbharati - formally the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research - writes and prints the textbooks. It was set up on 27 January 1967 by the state government specifically to improve the quality of school textbooks and keep them affordable, and it now produces books for Standards 1 to 12 across every medium the state supports. Its digital library sits at ebalbharati.in.
• MSBSHSE - the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education - runs the examinations, and only two of them: the SSC (Secondary School Certificate) at Standard 10, and the HSC (Higher Secondary Certificate) at Standard 12. It was established on 1 January 1966 under the Maharashtra Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Boards Act, 1965, and conducts its exams through nine divisional boards - Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Kolhapur, Amravati, Nashik, Latur and Konkan.

Nothing in that list examines a Standard 3, 4 or 5 child. If your child's school gives her a "state board exam" in primary school, that paper was set by the school itself, not by MSBSHSE.

This is the section Maharashtra parents most need, and part of it applies whether your child is in a state board, CBSE or ICSE school.

Marathi - settled. The Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Act, 2020 - Maharashtra Act No. 3 of 2020, enacted on 9 March 2020 - requires Marathi to be taught as a compulsory subject from Standard 1 to Standard 10 in every school in the state, whatever its board or medium, phased in year by year from the 2020-21 academic year. A September 2024 government directive confirmed Marathi as a compulsory, non-graded core subject with strict implementation from the 2025-26 academic year, and the state has warned of financial penalties and threatened the affiliation of CBSE and CISCE schools that do not comply. This is not a state-board-only rule - it reaches into Mumbai and Pune's biggest CBSE and ICSE names as much as into any Marathi-medium municipal school.

Hindi and the third language - still being settled. In April 2025 the state government issued a Government Resolution making Hindi the compulsory third language from Standard 1 to Standard 5 in English- and Marathi-medium State Board schools, citing NEP 2020's three-language formula and the 2024 State Curriculum Framework. It triggered a sustained public backlash. The government first said, on 22 April 2025, that it would drop the word "mandatory" from the order. On 17 June 2025 it issued a second GR making the third language optional among Indian languages, subject to a minimum of 20 students per grade choosing any one language. That still did not settle matters: ahead of the legislature's monsoon session, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that both the April and June GRs had been withdrawn entirely, and a committee headed by economist and former Rajya Sabha MP Dr Narendra Jadhav was set up to recommend how, and from which standard, the three-language formula should actually apply. No replacement policy had been finalised as of our most recent check - which is exactly the kind of live, moving position where the honest answer is to ask your own child's school what applies to Standard 1 to 5 this year, rather than trusting a 2025 headline.

Media of instruction. MSBSHSE recognises seven: Marathi, English, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Sindhi and Kannada. Many Marathi-medium schools also run a distinct Semi-English arrangement, enabled by a 2009 government resolution, in which Mathematics and Science are taught in English while the rest of the timetable stays in Marathi - a genuine middle path for families weighing a full switch to English medium.

Balbharati's own class-wise book lists show the shape clearly.

Standard	Subjects
Standards 1 to 5	First Language, Second Language (commonly English), Mathematics, EVS / Parisar Abhyas (one combined subject, published in two parts a year)
Standard 6	First Language, English, Hindi or Third Language, Mathematics, General Science, History & Civics, Geography

So EVS runs as one integrated subject all the way through Standard 5, then splits into three separate books from Standard 6 - not just Science and Social Science as in CBSE and Karnataka, but Social Science itself divided again into History & Civics and Geography. That is a genuinely finer split than most other boards use, and it means a Standard 6 child in Maharashtra is juggling three new subject books at once, not one.

A curriculum in transition. The state's School Education Department has approved the State Curriculum Framework (Basic Level) 2024 and (Advanced Level) 2024, prepared by MSCERT, aligning Maharashtra to NEP 2020's 5+3+3+4 structure. State Board schools have begun moving to an NCERT-aligned curriculum and books, starting with Standard 1 in the 2025-26 academic year and Standard 2 in 2026-27, with further standards due to follow year by year. On these newest books, EVS itself is being renamed - following NCERT's own newer titles - as The World Around Us. Practically, this means a family with children in different standards right now may see two different curricula side by side: the newer NCERT-aligned one in Standards 1 and 2, and the established Balbharati one described above everywhere else. Worth knowing before assuming an older and younger sibling's books should match.

"My child is in a CBSE school in Mumbai. Does she really have to learn Marathi?" Yes. The 2020 Marathi Act defines its scope as every school in the state, and the government has directed it as a compulsory, non-graded subject with warnings of penalties for schools - including CBSE and ICSE ones - that do not comply.

"Is Hindi compulsory in Standard 1 now?" Not currently, and the position has moved more than once in 2025 alone. Both government resolutions that tried to mandate it were withdrawn, and a state committee is still working out how the three-language formula will apply. Ask your school directly for this year's answer rather than relying on last year's news.

"What is Semi-English medium, and should we choose it?" It is a genuine, officially recognised option - a Marathi-medium school teaching Maths and Science in English under a 2009 government resolution, while the rest of the day stays in Marathi. It suits a family wanting an English foothold in those two subjects without a full medium change.

"We've moved from another state - will Standard 4 line up?" Expect EVS to still be one subject in Maharashtra at Standard 4, where some boards have already split it (ICSE splits at Class 3). The bigger adjustment is usually Marathi itself if your child has never studied it, since it is compulsory here regardless of the board she is coming from.

The short version is that we do not teach a generic "Maharashtra syllabus". We teach your child's actual Balbharati books, in the medium her school uses, with the state's own transitions built into how we plan.

• Books first. Whether your school has moved to the newer NCERT-aligned Standard 1 or 2 books or is still on the established Balbharati titles further up the school, classes work from what your child actually has.
• Marathi taken seriously. Where it is your child's compulsory subject, we treat it as one - not as an afterthought because her school happens to be CBSE or ICSE.
• EVS kept whole through standard 5, then bridged deliberately into General Science, History & Civics and Geography from standard 6, since that three-way split is sharper here than in most other boards.
• Medium respected exactly, including Semi-English arrangements where Maths and Science genuinely run in English inside an otherwise Marathi-medium day.

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