‘Govt sabotaging children’s education’: Congress over textbook delay
Congress alleged that the textbooks have not been finalised by NSTC yet and it will require another 10 to 15 days to print them out.
The Congress on Friday hit out at the Union government accusing the Education Ministry of "sabotaging" the education of children following a delay in the printing of Class 6 textbooks.
"Even as the school year has begun, the NCERT - the National (read Nagpur) Council of Educational Research and Training - has failed to publish new textbooks for Science, Mathematics, and Social Sciences for Class 6 students," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wrote in a post on ‘X’.
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Ramesh also alleged that the syllabus and the textbooks have not been finalised by the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) yet and it will require another 10 to 15 days to print them out.
Congress general secretary also claimed that the officials expect a delay of two months before the books are made available to the students.
The new textbooks were to be taught in April and are yet to hit the market, reported PTI.
While Class 3 textbooks have been made available, only English and Hindi textbooks have been released for Class 6 in the middle of the academic session.
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The Ministry of Education (MoE) formed the NSTC last July to form new textbooks for Classes 3 to 12 with an ambitious deadline in February.
However, then NSTC decided to only change the textbooks for Classes 3 and 6.
"For the academic year 2024-25, new and engaging textbooks will be introduced in Classes 3 and 6. The textbook development work is in the final phase and nine textbooks for Grades 3 and 6 are already available. The remaining eight will be available very soon," a senior Ministry of Education (MoE) official said, according to PTI.
"Either the rot runs deep, or the incompetence scales new heights every day!" Ramesh said that NCERT is yet to receive the drafts of the new books for Social Science, Mathematics and Science for Class 6 from NSTC.
On Thursday, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan reviewed the development of school textbooks by the New Curriculum Framework (NCF) at themeeting, reported PTI.
(with inputs from news agencies)