Pune: CM Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said the three-language policy, under which the state govt had earlier decided to make Hindi compulsory in all schools, was part of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 which is being implemented across the country and Maharashtra cannot opt out of it.He said govt has now withdrawn the Hindi compulsion, and students would be allowed to choose any Indian language — not just Hindi — as their third language. “If students want to learn another language, govt will ensure a dedicated teacher is appointed. If the numbers are few, we will facilitate online classes,” Fadnavis told reporters.On MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s criticism of the new govt resolution, Fadnavis said he has explained the situation to him, reiterating that the three-language system stems from the NEP formed after three years of expert consultations and feedback.In response to the language preference debate, Fadnavis said, “I fail to understand why we promote English and hesitate to embrace our own languages. Indian languages are far better than English.” He said Tamil Nadu approached the court against the three-language system, but their plea was rejected.“Our govt resolution clearly mentioned that Marathi is compulsory for all schools, and there are no alternatives to it, but there are alternatives to Hindi,” he said.Fadnavis said it was because of NEP that students can now pursue engineering, MBBS, or MBA in Marathi. “NEP opened the way to make Marathi a global language for knowledge and economy, hence Maharashtra adopted it. It is not right to make it a controversy. There is nothing wrong in learning three languages as it will only increase knowledge of children,” he added.At a press meet in Mumbai, school education minister Dada Bhuse said the three-language policy is already being followed in schools of other mediums, but was not yet implemented in Marathi medium schools.