Following the controversy of the female body issue in class 12 CBSE textbook, HRD Ministry is planning to make the NCERT textbooks compulsory for all the CBSE schools. Another reason for the this move is the overwhelming response from over 2000 private schools for making the NCERT textbooks compulsory. The step was taken after thoroughly conducting the capacity of the Education Council.
Advice from Prakash Javadekar to schools
According to the reports, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar recently advised schools to stick the textbooks published by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) instead of going for the textbooks published by private publishers and authors. But the same has not been made compulsory due to the reporting of shortage of books in the market from parents and school side.
Complaints from the parents regarding the books
Not only the controversial text but, parents also made complaints to the CBSE and HRD regarding the fact that schools have been insisting on costlier books from private publishers even if NCERT books are available in the market.Most of these complaints were registered through the official link which the CBSE had created on its official website for bringing any issue/problem into CBSE's notice regarding the NCERT textbooks. CBSE said that there is no shortage of the textbooks and this year the board is planning to publish around 4.25 crore books.
"This year, there was a problem because parents were complaining about books being highly priced. We appealed to all schools to register and give their intent. Over 2,000 schools have registered and we have supplied NCERT books in those 2,000 private schools," Javadekar told reporters on the sidelines of an event.