The Congress on July 5th flayed the Central government for holding up new Class VI textbooks, alleging that the Education Ministry is sabotaging children’s education.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh hit out at the government over the issue, saying it is either “deeply rotten” or “stupidity touches its peak every day.”
X’s post reads, “After sabotaging examination process through incompetent National Testing Authority, non-biological PM’s Education Ministry is now sabotaging education of our children.”
“Mr. Ramesh said while addressing a press conference in Nagpur on Monday that new textbooks for Science, Mathematics and Social Sciences for class 6 students have not been released by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) yet even as school year has already started.”
These books are still being worked on by National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), according to him.
He added that printing will take a further 10-15 days.
It will take officials up to two months before they can supply new books to students, he said.
“This could mean only one thing ‘either deeply rotten or degree of stupidity increases everyday’!” Mr. Ramesh commented sarcastically thus bashing the government which had failed to make available important books meant for class 6 learners especially those who should be taught from April this year till now having never reached the market.
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan held a meeting yesterday in New Delhi regarding development of school textbooks in accordance with New Curriculum Framework (NCF).
The meeting comes at a time when there has been a delay in publication of Class 6 books which should have been taught since April but are yet not available in market.
According to an earlier announcement by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), new textbooks for Classes 3 and 6 will be introduced from the academic session 2024-25.
“For 2024-25 academic session, we are going to have new and engaging textbooks for grade 3 and 6. The development of textbooks is now in its final stage whereby nine texts have been completed in Grades 3 and 6. Others will be out very soon,” a senior Ministry of Education official said.
Initially, the NCERT had targeted to publish new textbooks based on the NCF 2023 only for Classes 3 and 6 for this year. While those meant for Class III can already be found in markets, there has been a delay with respect to class VI materials.
It was just this week that NCERT released new English and Hindi textbooks at class six during ongoing academic year itself.
