Arjun Singh

New Delhi, July 14: The executive committee of the National Council for Educational Research and Training is floundering to find the right logistics to introduce new social science and history textbooks for Classes VI to XII.

However, Class X students are likely to be spared the trauma of studying new history texts in the middle of an academic session.

Bringing in alternative textbooks is proving a daunting task for the NCERT. It was set the task after the three-member expert committee of historians that studied the NCERT history textbooks introduced during the time of the previous government submitted a report to the human resource development ministry.

The report said the present set of texts was “unfit” but was unable to suggest an alternative that would not destabilise students in the current academic year.

Initially, the ministry had not thought of making changes from this academic year. But the experts recommended that the controversial books be removed immediately.

Today, the NCERT executive committee members, including HRD minister Arjun Singh, discussed the report for three hours but failed to find a solution. “The meeting was inconclusive today. We will meet again on Monday,” Singh said.

The committee seems divided on working out a reading list of alternative textbooks. Left-wing historians like Mridula Mukherjee, former professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a committee member, made it clear she favoured bringing back the old history texts.

“The old textbooks authored by eminent historians like Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra and Bipin Chandra can be brought back,” she said.

But there is no unanimity in the committee. “This is my personal opinion. All members gave their different opinions at the meeting,” Mukherjee said.

“The issue is extremely complex,” she added. The number of alternative texts would vary from class to class. “We do not want to disturb 10th standard students who will have to appear for (the) board examination,” Mukherjee said.

The committee faces an uphill task of recommending an alternative set of books, ensuring their availability to students this academic year, and also working out the cost of printing such a large number of books.

The expert committee had suggested a number of private publishers like Oxford University Press whose books could be considered for an alternative reading list. But it had not named the books.

“This is a very serious issue. We have to give it enough time. There is one basic conclusion that these present books are awful,” said Sudeep Banerjee, a senior official in the HRD ministry.

Singh did not seem to think the delay would affect the students who are already studying the new NCERT texts.