Will pvt schools adhere to diktat on books?

CHANDIGARH: As the Chandigarh Education Department has directed the schools to use the books prescribed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in its ‘Children School Bag Policy’, the questions remains whether private schools will refrain from prescribing voluminous private publishers’ books for reducing the bag load?

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 13

As the Chandigarh Education Department has directed the schools to use the books prescribed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in its ‘Children School Bag Policy’, the questions remains whether private schools will refrain from prescribing voluminous private publishers’ books for reducing the bag load?

The efforts to encourage the use of NCERT books in schools have been looked down upon by private schools for a long time. Private schools claim the NCERT books are of inferior quality and cannot be recommended to all classes.

In 2007 as well, the CBSE felt the need to reduce the load of school bags of children. For this, new textbooks based on the ‘National Curriculum Framework-2005’ were prepared by the NCERT so as to minimise the load of curriculum on children. However, the city private schools took no notice of the same.

The CBSE had then enlisted the number of NCERT textbooks to be prescribed for Classes I to VIII. For Classes I and II, three textbooks – mother tongue, English and mathematics — were prescribed.

How class-wise bag weight has been decided

The prescribed weight limit of school bags in the policy is in line with the Maharashtra and Telangana Government bag-weight model.

On October 5, 2018, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had asked all state governments/ UTs to formulate a policy on schoolchildren’s bag weight in line with either Telangana or Maharashtra.

While calculating the weight of books, the Telangana model laid stress on the number of books prescribed by the state academic authority i.e. the SCERT.

According to the Telangana model, for Class I and II, three textbooks – mother tongue, English and mathematics — are prescribed. Four textbooks for Class III to V have been prescribed — mother tongue, English, mathematics and environmental studies — and so on for other classes.

In the absence of any recommendation by the state academic authority in the UT, parents feel the private schools will have to adhere to the directions by the CBSE for the purpose of reducing the bag weight.

Nitin Goyal, Chandigarh Parents Association president, said: “The bag weight policy is a welcome step. However, the policy cannot be exercised in true spirit unless schools switch to only NCERT books. Books of private publishers are bulky and difficult to carry.” The UT policy instructs the schools to use books and study the material prescribed by the NCERT/SCERT and the CBSE.

What schools say

HS Mamik, president, Independent Schools’ Association, said: “Till Class V, we don’t recommend NCERT books at all. The bag weight prescribed also seems unrealistic”. “Since the department has recommended loose sheets for children, we will ask children to bring chapters in loose sheets only,” he said, mocking the policy.