Delhi Government Backed by High Court on Same Textbooks in All Schools

The court stated that such uniformity would also obviate the requirement to monitor content that individual schools may pick to edify their students.

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea challenging a Delhi government circular issued to all schools under it to follow textbooks prescribed by the SCERT, NCERT and CBSE. The court said that such kind of uniformity would obviate the requirement to monitor content that individual schools may pick to edify their students.

 “Students in our country constitute a homogeneous whole. Consistency of dissemination of education among them is a necessity, in order that they march together… on the path of knowledge and learning, towards the creation of a new and vibrant Bharat for ages to come,” Justice C Hari Shankar said.

The court’s order was the result of an appeal by the Federation of Educational Publishers in India, challenging the November 29, 2018, circular of the Delhi government’s Directorate of Education (DoE), which made it compulsory for schools to track textbooks published by the State Council of Educational Research & Training, the National Council of Educational Research & Training, and the Central Board of Secondary Education.

The federation had asserted that the govt was “trying to achieve compulsory enforcement of exclusive use of NCERT books indirectly, which it cannot do directly”. The DoE had also stabilized the weight limit for the school bags, but the court had earlier held that the federation, as an association of textbook manufacturers, lacked the locus to air any grievance against this.

“This court endorses the mandate… that in respect of subjects for which textbooks have been prescribed by CBSE, and published by the NCERT/SCERT/CBSE, the said prescription shall scrupulously be followed by all schools subject to the control of DoE,” it said.

“The syllabi and textbooks prescribed by CBSE shall constitute the basis of imparting of education, as well as evaluation, of all school students from classes I to X,” the judge said.

The court also detected that “dissonance in the ranks, which would be an inevitable sequitur, were each school to be given absolute authority to prescribe the books which it would edify the students, and on which they would be evaluated and assessed, is inimical not only to the interests of students themselves, but would ultimately dismantle the national interest, of which the children of today are the strident sentinels of tomorrow”.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://indianexpress.com/article/education/high-court-backs-delhi-govt-on-same-textbooks-in-all-schools-under-it-5646114/lite/