The Congress party criticized the Union government on Friday, accusing the Ministry of Education of jeopardizing children’s education due to delays in printing Class 6 textbooks.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary, expressed concern over the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) failing to publish new Science, Mathematics, and Social Sciences textbooks for Class 6 students despite the school year already underway. He also alleged that the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) has yet to finalize the syllabus and textbooks, which are expected to take another 10 to 15 days to print.
Ramesh further claimed that officials anticipate a delay of up to two months before the textbooks become available to students. The new textbooks, originally scheduled for introduction in April, have not yet been released, according to PTI.
While Class 3 textbooks have been issued, only English and Hindi textbooks have been released for Class 6 midway through the academic session. The Ministry of Education (MoE) had established the NSTC in July last year with the aim of developing new textbooks for Classes 3 to 12, with a deadline set for February.
However, the NSTC decided to only revise textbooks for Classes 3 and 6. A senior MoE official stated, “New and engaging textbooks for Grades 3 and 6 are nearing completion for the academic year 2024-25. Nine textbooks are already available, with the remaining eight expected soon,” according to PTI.
Ramesh criticized the delay, highlighting that NCERT has yet to receive drafts for new Social Science, Mathematics, and Science textbooks for Class 6 from NSTC. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently reviewed progress on school textbooks under the New Curriculum Framework (NCF) during a meeting on Thursday, PTI reported.