Textbooks published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training have been made mandatory for schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education for the 2017-2018 session. The new session starts in April. The schools have been asked to place orders on the board website between February 15 and February 22, reported The Times of India.
“NCERT will be printing and supplying adequate quantity of NCERT textbooks for all classes from I to XII through its empaneled vendors and distributors,” said a circular issued by the board, according to dna.
The decision was made at a meeting chaired by Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday. The decision has been made to make the syllabus more uniform. This comes only days after it was reported that a textbook taught to Class 4 students in a Delhi school asked students to suffocate a cat to death in order to learn about the difference between living and non-living things. The book in question was published by a private publisher.
This also comes as a huge relief to parents who often complain that private publishers overcharge for textbooks. “Many schools have book kiosks on their premises. As well as selling exorbitantly priced textbooks from private publishers, these shops sell ‘bundle packs’ that include pencils, erasers, and other stationery, which would cost a lot less for parents in the open market. We have also noticed that private publishers are sponsoring several school heads on junkets to countries like Switzerland,” an unidentified ministry official told The Times of India.
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