NCERT sets up textbook panel for Classes 3-12; Fields medalist, RSS affiliate founder, Sudha Murthy among members

Fields medalist Manjul Bhargava, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to PM Bibek Debroy, founding member of the RSS-affiliated Samskrita Bharati Chamu Krishna Shastry, philanthropist Sudha Murthy, and singer Shankar Mahadevan are among its members.

NCERT to revise the textbooks for classes 3 to 12

The committee will also revise the textbooks of classes 1 and 2, to ensure a smooth transition to the following grades. (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh/ Representative Image)

Listen to this article

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

The country’s apex advisory body on school education has initiated the final phase of developing new textbooks by establishing a 19-member committee responsible for aligning “school syllabus, textbooks, teaching and learning materials” with the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for Classes 3-12.

Fields medalist Manjul Bhargava, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to PM Bibek Debroy, founding member of the RSS-affiliated Samskrita Bharati Chamu Krishna Shastry, philanthropist Sudha Murthy, and singer Shankar Mahadevan are among its members.

As per an order uploaded on the website of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the committee will also revise the textbooks of Classes 1 and 2 to ensure a smooth transition to the following grades.

Also Read | ‘Not in our name,’ 33 political scientists join chorus, ask NCERT to drop their names from textbooks

The committee will be headed by National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) Chancellor MC Pant. Bhargava, a professor at Princeton University, will be its co-chair.

The school textbooks currently in use are based on the National Curriculum Framework of 2005. These textbooks were recently at the center of controversy as the NCERT made sweeping changes, including dropping several chapters, paragraphs, and even sentences from textbooks across subjects under the pretext of reducing the curriculum to aid students in recovering from the learning disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of the exercise, NCERT deleted references to the 2002 Gujarat riots, passages discussing the draconian effects of the Emergency on people and institutions, as well as chapters on protests and social movements, including those led by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, Dalit Panthers and Bharatiya Kisan Union, from the political science textbooks.

The new textbooks will be based on the new NCF, submitted to the Education Minister on July 28. The pre-draft NCF, shared in the public domain on April 6 for feedback, suggested a major restructuring of school education, recommending board examinations twice a year, a semester system for class 12, and freedom for students to pursue a mix of science, humanities, and commerce subjects, among others. The final report, sources said, has incorporated changes based on feedback. The final report hasn’t been made public by the ministry yet.

Apart from Debroy, another person included in the committee from the EAC is economist Sanjeev Sanyal. The other members include former chief national badminton coach U Vimal Kumar; M D Srinivas, the Chairperson of the Centre for Policy Studies; Shekhar Mande, the former Director-General of CSIR and a distinguished professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University; Surina Ranjan, a retired IAS officer and former Director-General of the Haryana Institute of Public Administration; and French author and IIT Gandhinagar professor Michael Danino. Another professor who is part of the committee is Sujatha Ramadorai, who teaches Mathematics at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Also Read | CBSE urges schools to promote Indian languages

The panel also consists of four members from the NCERT: Pratyusha Kumar Mandala, Dinesh Kumar, Kirti Kapoor, and Ranjana Arora. Rabin Chetri, the Director of SCERT, Sikkim, is also a part of it.

The committee is mandated to prepare textbooks and other teaching learning materials, which will, in turn, be published and used by NCERT, as per the terms of reference. It will be assisted by sub-groups (also known as Curricular Area Groups) in the development of textbooks for different subjects. These groups will include appropriate experts for the said subject.