Congress slams Centre for delay in Class 6 textbooks: ‘After sabotaging examination process…’

The Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on July 5 slammed the Centre over the delay in publishing new Class 6 textbooks. He also alleged that the Education Ministry is now "sabotaging" the education of children in the same manner it disrupted the examination process.

He also hit out at the Centre over the issue and said that either the "rot runs deep", or the incompetence scales new heights everyday.

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Taking to X, he wrote, "After sabotaging the examination process through the incompetent National Testing Authority, the non-biological PM's Education Ministry is sabotaging the education of our children."

"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," he added.

He further pointed out that, The textbooks themselves have not been finalised by the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), adding that the printing will take another 10 to 15 days.

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“Officials expect a delay of two months before they can make news books available to students. Either the rot runs deep, or the incompetence reaches scales new heights everyday!” Ramesh said.

His comments came a day after Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan reviewed the development of school textbooks in accordance with the New Curriculum Framework (NCF) at a meeting. The meeting came in the backdrop of a delay in the publication of Class 6 textbooks that were supposed to be taught from April, but are yet to hit the market. The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had previously announced plans to introduce new textbooks for Classes 3 and 6 starting from the 2024-25 academic year. It was only this week that the NCERT released new English and Hindi textbooks for Class 6 in the middle of the academic session.

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Initially, the NCERT had aimed to release the new textbooks based on the NCF 2023 only for Classes 3 and 6 this year. While the textbooks for Class 3 are available in the market, those for Class 6 have been delayed.

"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 as quoted by news agency news agency PTI.

(With inputs from PTI)