HYDERABAD: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued new guidelines relating to the use of NCERT textbooks in schools.
As per the proposed amended rules, the schools have been directed to strictly use the NCERT or SCERT textbooks and take extreme care while selecting supplementary materials.
“Amendments have been made in the Chapter 2, Clause 2 4.7 of the Affiliation Bye-Laws 2018, in respect of the rule position on the provisions for use of the textbooks by schools and will come in to force from the date of issue of this notification,” said a notification issued by the CBSE on August 12, 2024.
For Class 1 to 8, schools have been instructed to follow NCERT or SCERT textbooks. The schools may use supplementary materials as per need, but it must align with the National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) and National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE).
The chosen materials must contain the essential core content together with discussion, analysis, examples, and applications, said the proposed amended rule issued by the CSBE.
For Classes 9 to 12, the CBSE has instructed the schools to mandatorily follow the NCERT textbooks prescribed by the board in the curriculum.
In case NCERT or SCERT books are not available in some subjects, the schools should use the CBSE textbooks uploaded on the official website.
Use of supplementary material and digital content
The schools can also use supplementary material if needed. They can also use digital content to augment the textbooks. But the supplementary material and digital content must be aligned with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE), the CBSE notice said.
What the Byelaw-2018 says
As per the existing Byelaw-2018, the schools affiliated to the CBSE may prescribe NCERT textbooks in subjects where they are available. If schools use books from private publishers, they should ensure that these books must not contain any content that hurts the feelings of any class, community, gender, or religious group.
The Byelaw also mandates the schools to put a list of prescribed books on its website with the written declaration signed by the Manager and the Principal saying they have gone through the contents of the books. If any objectionable content is found in these supplementary books, the school will be held accountable and action will be taken by the CBSE, it says.