From next year, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will be the only authority which can publish school textbooks and CBSE will be restricted to its original role of holding exams and affiliations.
The decision was taken in meeting which was chaired by the school education secretary Anil Swarup and was attended by the CBSE secretary and NCERT director among others.
"The ministry has asked the NCERT to gear up its operations for the expected increase in volume as more schools are likely to use its textbooks from the next academic session. The NCERT presented its plan of action and said it would be ready for the increased volume as well as with the revision process before the start of the next academic session," said an official of the HRD ministry.
The council right now is in the process of reviewing all its textbooks from class I to XII and has invited suggestions from teachers on factual errors from all states and Union territories and also on content and concept presentation. Once all suggestions are received, subject experts will look into the recommendations and updates will be made accordingly.
"Apart from factual errors, the Council has also been asked to improve the presentation of the books qualitatively," said the official.