Ministry sabotaging children's education: Congress slams govt for delaying Class 6 textbooks

The education ministry is "sabotaging" children's education, alleged the Congress on Friday (July 5). 

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh slammed the Cente over the delay in publishing Class 6 textbooks saying that either the "rot runs deep", or the incompetence scales new heights everyday.

In a post on X, he said, "After sabotaging the examination process through the incompetent National Testing Authority, the non-biological PM's Education Ministry is sabotaging the education of our children." "Even as the school year has begun, the NCERT - the National (read Nagpur) Council of Educational Research and Training - has failed to publish new textbooks for Science, Mathematics, and Social Sciences for Class 6 students," Ramesh said.

Class 6 textbooks delayed

The textbooks themselves have not been finalised by the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), he said, pointing out that printing will take another 10 to 15 days.

Officials expect a delay of two months before they can make new books available to students, he claimed.

"Either the rot runs deep, or the incompetence scales new heights everyday!" Ramesh said.

His remarks come a day after education minister Dharmendra Pradhan reviewed the development of school textbooks in accordance with the New Curriculum Framework (NCF) at a meeting in New Delhi.

The meeting came in the backdrop of a delay in the publication of Class 6 textbooks that were supposed to be taught from April and are yet to hit the market.

NCERT announcement

The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had earlier announced that new textbooks for Classes 3 and 6 will be introduced from the 2024-25 academic session.

"For the academic year 2024-25, new and engaging textbooks will be introduced in Classes 3 and 6. The textbook development work is in the final phase and nine textbooks for Grades 3 and 6 are already available. The remaining eight will be available very soon," a senior Ministry of Education (MoE) official said.

The NCERT had an initial aim of releasing the new textbooks based on the NCF 2023 only for Classes 3 and 6 this year. While the textbooks for Class 3 are available in the market, those for Class 6 have been delayed.

It was only this week that the NCERT released new English and Hindi textbooks for Class 6 in the middle of the academic session.

(With inputs from agencies)