Education Ministry Directs NCERT to Annually Review Textbooks

The Union Education Ministry has directed the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to establish a yearly system for reviewing textbooks. This system will ensure necessary changes are made before the printing of new textbooks for each academic session, according to officials privy to the development.

Currently, while there is no fixed mandate for annual textbook reviews, the NCERT has been updating content since 2017. Significant changes were made to the textbooks between 2022 and 2023 as part of a syllabus rationalisation exercise aimed at reducing student stress amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior Ministry officials have now instructed the council to conduct annual content reviews. An official stated, “The Ministry has communicated to the NCERT that books should be reviewed on a yearly basis. They are soon going to implement this system. It is crucial that when a student purchases a book for the new session, it is the most updated version of that book.”

The official further explained the rationale behind this decision, “NCERT books, once published, should not remain the same for many years. They should be reviewed every year before printing, and if any changes need to be made or new facts need to be added, they should be incorporated into the books. For instance, topics like Artificial Intelligence (AI) that are evolving. Until now, there had been no mandate for yearly textbook reviews.”

According to the official, it will take at least two years for all textbooks to be released for all classes in line with the new National Curriculum Framework (NCF). “This means that from the academic session 2026-27, students across all classes will have new textbooks as per the NCF,” the official added.

The NCERT is revising textbooks in accordance with the new National Curriculum Framework (NCF) released last year as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. This year, the Council released new textbooks in line with the NCF only for classes 3rd and 6th.

The NCERT has made some major changes in its History, Political Science, and Sociology textbooks this year. Some references to the Babri Masjid, the politics of Hindutva, the 2002 Gujarat riots, and minorities were dropped. New references were added, such as the abrogation of Article 370, replacing the term “Azad Pakistan” with “Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK)”, and revising a paragraph defining the Left as those who prefer “state regulation over free competition”.