Apr 30, 2024 03:00 AM IST
Union education ministry directs NCERT to annually review and update school textbooks before printing, focusing on reducing content load and reflecting evolving topics.
New Delhi: The Union education ministry has asked the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to put an annual system in place to review study material for school students and make the necessary changes before printing new textbooks ahead of every academic session, officials familiar with the development said.
NCERT publishes new textbooks before the beginning of each academic session though there is no fixed mandate to review content. In June 2022, the council had made some major changes in the textbooks as it rationalised the syllabi of classes 6 to 12 to “reduce the content load” on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The council, senior officials in the education ministry said, has now been asked to review the content every year. “The ministry has told the NCERT that books should be reviewed on a yearly basis. They are soon going to put that system in place. It is important that when a student buys a book ahead of the new session, it has to be the updated version of that book,” one of the officials said, requesting anonymity. “So far, there was no mandate of yearly review of the textbooks.”
Explaining the rationale behind the move, the official added: “NCERT books once published should not remain the same for many years. They should be reviewed every year before printing and, if any, changes have to be made or some new facts have to be added, they should be included in the books. For instance, topics such as Artificial Intelligence are evolving.”
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It will take at least two years for all textbooks to be released for all classes in line with the new National Curriculum Framework (NCF), the official said. “It means that from academic session 2026-27, students across all classes will have new textbooks as per NCF.”
NCERT is revising textbooks in line with the new NCF, released last year as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. This year, the council has released new textbooks in line with NCF only for classes 3 and 6.
Among the changes, reflected in textbooks published by the NCERT post-rationalisation in 2022, included some controversial ones in history, political science and sociology textbooks. The council dropped some references to Babri Masjid, politics of Hindutva, and the 2002 Gujarat riots, while adding references to abrogation of Article 370, replacing the phrase “Azad Pakistan” with “Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK)”, and revising a paragraph defining the Left (political ideology) as those who prefer “state regulation over free competition”.
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- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fareeha Iftikhar is a Special Correspondent with the national political bureau of the Hindustan Times. She tracks the education ministry, and covers the beat at the national level for the newspaper. She also writes on issues related to gender, human rights and different policy matters.
