Only NCERT books in all CBSE schools

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks are going to be made mandatory to be followed and taught in all Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools. Making the NCERT books mandatory for all CBSE schools will lift the burden of buying expensive publisher’s books from the shoulders of the parents.

As per a senior HRD official, NCERT means to deliver all books in sufficient quantity, with the help of its association with 680 distribution vendors across the country. NCERT plans to deliver all the books across the country before March end so that they can meet the deadline of the 2022 academic session.

CBSE schools can follow and place their orders for the NCERT books, at the official CBSE website. Orders and requests can be placed on the website only once, from February 15, 2022, onwards. The HRD Ministry is planning to complete the deliveries before the start of the new academic session.

The HRD Ministry came to this decision after receiving feedbacks and complaints from the schools and parents about the unavailability of NCERT books and how parents are then forced to buy private publisher’s books at 300% to 600% higher rates.

A senior HRD official said that several schools have stationary and book shops inside the campus, which sell books from private publishers at a higher price. Not only books, these shops also sell other stationary items like pencils, erasers etc. at higher prices. It is also noticed that these private publishers also pay for many school heads’ expensive foreign trips.

Officials of the CBSE have said that because of the fixed number of admissions in its schools, it has a precise approximate number of the NCERT textbooks required for classes I- XII.

CBSE has an idea of the number of students in a class and not in each section. Now, since the schools will be placing their orders online, CBSE will get to know whether the demand is sufficient or not. The figures may show a mismatch in the month of March, but the schools will make up and state the same in their procurement. CBSE is also going to supervise and keep a track of the yearly subscription of the schools.