The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) said on Wednesday that new textbooks for Class 6 will be made available by the end of July.
In response to a story published by The Hindu on July 9, the NCERT stated that all Grade 6 textbooks would be made available by the NCERT this month and that the two-month timeline referred to in the article was incorrect.
In States such as Tamil Nadu, where the new academic year begins in June, the non-availability of Class 6 textbooks had raised concerns among schools. In several other States, the academic year starts only in July.
The Class 6 textbooks for English (titled Poorvi), for Hindi (titled Malhar) and for Urdu (titled Khayal) are available online in digital format, but those related to Science, Maths and Social Science are yet to be made available. The introduction of new textbooks is along the lines of the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The texbooks were drafted by the National Syllabus and Teaching-Learning Material Committee, constituted in July last year.
Earlier, the committee had been mandated to develop new textbooks with a revamped syllabus for all classes with a tight deadline of seven months. Later, its mandate was changed to only develop textbooks for Classes 3 and 6 in the current academic year.
“To allay any misgivings and for greater clarity it is reiterated that NCERT has already made available a month-long bridge programme in all the ten subject areas for Grade 6, which is being used for teaching at present,” the NCERT statement said.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had held a review meeting of senior officials on July 4 to assess the progress of development of textbooks.
In March, the Central Board of Secondary Education had said that for classes other than Class 3 and Class 6 there would be no change to the existing curriculum or textbooks.
With regard to complaints of unavailability of textbooks for Classes 9 and 11 from some private schools in Tamil Nadu, the NCERT said that the Regional Publication and Distribution Centre in Bengaluru catered to all South Indian States, including Tamil Nadu.
Title-wise demand for Class 9 and 11 textbooks received from RPDC Bengaluru has been met by the NCERT publication division and no shortage has been reported by the RPDC, the statement said.
Published - July 10, 2024 09:47 pm IST
