Chapter III
Institutional Mechanisms for Preparation of Textbooks in the States
T extbooks have
always been an integral part of the Indian school education system. As the
school education programme acquired a mass character in the post-independence
period, the absence of good quality textbooks began to be acutely felt. Yet the
period immediately after independence saw no major effort to mass-produce
textbooks. As the system expanded, the textbook industry became one of the very
profitable fields for investment which also led to a proliferation of low
quality, substandard and badly produced textbooks. Thus the availability of
textbooks at affordable prices for the poor also became an important issue. The
Education Commission (1964-66) points out that textbook writing and production
did not receive the attention they deserved. The Commission also identified
several factors contributing to the problem, such as the lack of interest shown
by top-ranking scholars, malpractices in the selection and prescription of
textbooks, unscrupulous tactics adopted by several publishers, lack of research
in the preparation and production of textbooks and the almost total disregard of
the need for bringing out ancillary books such as teachers’ guides and
supplementary material. It is in this context that many state governments took
over the production of textbooks.1
The establishment of the Central Bureau of Textbook Research in
1954 and its subsequent merger into the NCERT in 1961 gave a new direction to
textbook development and production. The NCERT launched a comprehensive
programme of textbook production from the late 1960s. The National Board of
School Textbooks in its first meeting in 1969 suggested that the NCERT should
work out a general framework in the form of principles and criteria for
preparing textbooks for different school subjects by actively involving state
authorities, subject specialists, teachers and other educators.
Emergence of State Agencies: NCERT, SCERTs and Textbook Bureaus
Efforts to institutionalise textbook preparation and production
began with state production of textbooks in the post-independence period. Uttar
Pradesh, for instance, was one of the first states to do so. The State
Institutes of Education (SIEs) and State Institutes of Science Education in the
mid-1960s took up this task. Both structures were integrally part of the State
Directorates of Education. The NCERT had also begun preparing textbooks at the
national level. Particularly with respect to social sciences, the writing of
history became tied to the elaboration of the nationalist project to build a
democratic, liberal, socialist, humanistic vision. Moved by the optimism of the
age and the urge to provide the children of new India with a history of India’s
past, many reputed academics were invited to write textbooks when the NCERT was
set up in the mid-1960s.
During this time, state governments, faced with the task of
providing textbooks in schools which then were predominantly government-run,
established Textbook Bureaus and State Boards of Examination. While the Textbook
Bureaus focused on the printing and distribution of textbooks and the Boards had
the task of prescribing syllabi and conducting examinations, the states used
several methods for the actual preparation of textual materials.
A few state governments established Textbook Corporations for
the production of textbooks. In most states, the function of textbook
preparation, particularly for primary and upper primary classes, was taken over
by SCERTs which subsumed the SIEs organisationally as well as functionally. For
instance, the Maharashtra government combined the task of textbook production
and related research by the creation of the Maharashtra State Board of Textbook
Production and Curriculum Research. Based on the recommendations of the NPE 1986
to decentralise curricula and textbook writing, states began to establish SCERTs,
either closing down the older SIEs or amalgamating them with the SCERTs.
However, there existed a tension with regard to their functioning. While states
were prepared to allow the SCERTs to prescribe the function of textbook
preparation for primary and upper primary classes, they were reluctant to hand
over a similar role to the SCERTs in respect of secondary education.
Textbook preparation at the secondary level was assigned either
to the wholly state-controlled Board of Education or the state’s Directorate of
Education. However, neither structure had the professional wherewithal to
undertake the academic task of textbook writing, the former being an examining
body and the latter an administrative one. They relied upon ‘established’
academics chosen by a committee constituted to choose writers. In effect,
textbook preparation was left to the discretion of handpicked academics. This is
not to give the impression that in contrast to the situation as regards
secondary education all was well with regard to primary and middle schools. This
does not imply that the tasks, even for primary and middle sections, were fully
streamlined and that all the SCERTs carried them out systematically. For one,
some of the SCERTs, as in case of the north-eastern states, came into existence
much later and the responsibility for textbook preparation and production in
some of them is still quite fluid.
The textbooks for the secondary and higher secondary stages are
generally adopted from the NCERT in most of the states. Textbooks at the
secondary stage are not prepared in Delhi, as all schools are affiliated to the
CBSE. CBSE-prescribed textbooks are used at the higher secondary/PUC stage in
Delhi. The Himachal Pradesh Board does not prepare textbooks for Classes XI and
XII; instead, books of the NCERT are recommended in the schools. In Haryana
also, textbooks published by the NCERT have been introduced in the state at the
secondary and higher secondary/PUC stage. In Orissa, at the secondary stage (for
Classes VIII, IX and X) the Board of Secondary Education, Orissa – which is an
autonomous organisation – prepares textbooks. At higher secondary education (for
Classes XI and XII) the State Bureau of Textbook Preparation and Publication,
Bhubaneswar, is responsible for preparing textbooks. But, as already mentioned,
very few states directly intervene in private unaided schools with regard to the
nature of teaching-learning material and books being used. Once recognition is
given to such private self-financing schools, public examinations are the only
link between the schools and the state government authorities.2
The role of the NCERT as a textbook producer at the central
level has expanded enormously with the publication of NCFs and the collaborative
arrangement between the CBSE and NCERT.
With the huge expansion of the private unaided sector at both
the elementary and secondary levels, divergence in the use of textbooks by
government and private schools has acquired considerable importance as described
in the ensuing sections. Given this diversity of textbooks in all types of
schools, what goes into the textbooks is a matter of national importance
and merits the highest attention.
Textbook Preparation Mechanisms for Schools in the Government
System in the States
What processes do the SCERTs/other agencies adopt in preparing
textbooks? If private publishers are involved, how are the books approved and
prescribed by the state government bodies? Are private schools free to use any
textbook? The CABE Subcommittee explored these questions with state agencies
through quick questionnaire-based surveys. Eighteen states responded. In
addition, the Subcommittee studied the responses to questionnaires sent out by
the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA).3
The Committee has also looked into the state studies series undertaken by the
NIEPA between 1994 and 2004.
Based on these studies plus information available from state
reports commissioned by the Committee, state mechanisms can be broadly
categorised as:
1. States which relied on the NCERT textbooks and de facto
accepted the presumed institutional mechanisms of the central agency to approve
textbooks. Examples are Arunachal Pradesh and the union territories.
2. States which permit textbook preparation up to Class VIII by
the centrally funded and controlled DPEP/SSA and, for the secondary stage, use
their own State Boards. In Himachal Pradesh, textbooks are prepared by DPEP/SSA
and printed by the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education. In Orissa, the
responsibility for preparing the textbooks for different streams of education
rests with the different organisations/institutions of the state. At the
elementary stage the Directorate of Teacher Education and SCERT and the Orissa
Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA), Bhubaneswar, prepare textbooks.
3. States which took on the responsibility of preparing their
own textbooks but entrusted this task to their own, wholly controlled state
agencies. States like Karnataka and Gujarat have the Directorate of Textbooks
which is a wing of the SCERT. The SCERT itself is very strongly
state-controlled. In Mizoram and West Bengal, the Board of School Education
prepares the textbooks for the elementary stage. In Mizoram, the Mizoram Board
of School Education Act l975 empowers the Board to prescribe, prepare, publish
and select textbooks for the various examinations conducted by the Board. Under
the Board, the Statutory Committee of the Mizoram Board of School Education
selects textbook writers and editors for textbook and syllabus preparation. In
Gujarat, the Gujarat School Textbook Board is the regulatory authority. The
GCERT only provides technical support to the Textbook Development Board which is
fully responsible for the preparation, publication and distribution of
textbooks. In Madhya Pradesh, for example, the SCERT prepares the textbooks and
their printing, publication and distribution is done entirely by the Madhya
Pradesh State Textbook Corporation.
4. Among the states which permit SCERTs to prepare textbooks up
to Class VIII, which rely on the CBSE/NCERT for the secondary stage, are Delhi,
Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana and, of course, the union territories. In
Haryana, the Board of School Education assigns the work of material development
to the SCERT which in turn accomplishes the work by organising workshops with
schoolteachers and subject experts and subject specialists working in the SCERT.
While the SCERT produces/develops textbooks for primary classes (I to V), for
Classes VI to VIII, textbooks published by the NCERT have been adopted by the
state. In Delhi, teams comprising senior university teachers, professionals from
the NGO sector, college teachers, SCERT and DIET (District Institute of
Education and Training) teacher educators and schoolteachers prepare the
textbooks in a collaborative mode for Classes I to VIII. In Rajasthan, textbooks
for Classes I to VIII are prepared by the SCERT, approved by the state
government and published by the Textbook Board. Before publication, computerised
manuscripts of all textbooks in the form of hard copy are presented to the
Secretary (Education) and to the Education Minister for approval. Similarly, in
the schools run by the state government or recognised and aided by the state
government of Uttar Pradesh, it is compulsory to use only those textbooks which
are approved by the Uttar Pradesh Basic Shiksha Parishad and Uttar Pradesh
Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad. But the two Boards (Parishads) of the state
government sometimes only approve a panel of authors and not the precise books
and the schools are free to choose books written by any of the empanelled
authors. From Class IX to XII this practice is quite often followed.
Institutional structures and mechanisms, including legislative
measures, exist in several states. In Orissa, legislative measures have recently
been taken for the adoption of a language textbook (Oriya) in English medium
schools affiliated to the ICSE and CBSE. In Madhya Pradesh, the state government
has formulated an Act, the Madhya Pradesh Prathamik Tatha Madhyamik Shiksha (Pathya
Pustakon Sambandhi Vyavastha) Adhiniyam 1973 and 1974, which approves the
textbooks of the state. These approved books are to be adopted essentially by
government primary and upper primary schools.4
While in most cases textbooks are printed in state government
establishments, some states use private facilities also for the purpose. In
Karnataka, the Directorate of Textbooks as a wing of the Department of State
Educational Research and Training (DSERT) prepares all the textbooks for Classes
I to X. After preparation, 60 per cent of the textbooks are given for printing
to the government press and 40 per cent are printed by private
printers/publishers. Management of printing and publication is an important
issue, as it involves large amounts of investment and substantial profit-making
wherever private publishers are involved.
Gujarat follows a three-tier try-out system in three phases
before introducing textbooks. Try-out: Phase I involves try-out in 400 randomly
selected primary schools; Try-out: Phase II involves try-out in selected schools
of low literacy rate districts; and Phase III involves implementation of the
modified textbooks all over the state. In West Bengal also, a periodic try-out
process is adopted before finalisation of the manuscripts. In Mizoram, the
Mizoram Board of School Education (MBSE) as a first step examines the curriculum
and syllabi of other Boards and the NCERT and formulates a suitable curriculum
and syllabi for Mizoram state. Editors are also appointed to edit the textbooks
written by local experts. The Mizoram Board of School Education regulates
textbook publication through private publishers. The State Board prints all the
textbooks, as the Board is empowered by the Mizoram Board of School Education
Act 1975, passed by the Mizoram Legislative Assembly.
In Karnataka, Textbook Committees are formed for every
subject/class, consisting of subject experts and classroom teachers. The
manuscripts prepared are scrutinised by another group of experts and introduced
for one year in selected blocks of the state. The textbooks are again revised,
based on the feedback, and introduced in the entire state.
The Madhya Pradesh State Board-affiliated schools, both
government and private, are all supposed to use only the books produced by the
State Government Education Department i.e. developed by the Madhya Pradesh SCERT
and printed by the Madhya Pradesh State Textbook Corporation. The Madhya Pradesh
Textbook Act mandates this. Even the books or magazines provided to the
libraries are supposed to be approved by the state government. The mechanism of
textbook writing is done in a workshop mode. Resource persons for these
workshops are identified from various fields of education – schoolteachers,
subject experts, persons from Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs), DIETs,
Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs), Institutes of Advanced Study in Education
(IASEs) and retired persons. A Textbook Standing Committee approves the
textbooks and the state government notifies the approved textbooks.
In Bihar, the institutional mechanisms for regulating school
education are fully in place but there is a total lack of coordination between
agencies entrusted with the preparation and publication of textbooks in Bihar.
This is largely because of the failure of the SCERT to carry out its
responsibility with regard to the production of textbooks owing to an absence of
coordination between the different organisations involved in the supervision and
preparation of books. They are neither well organised nor adequately prepared to
carry out this work. The inefficiency of government departments has led directly
to the emergence of parallel textbook centres in the state, weakening the
existing institutions to a point where there is hardly any publication of
textbooks by government institutions and the textbooks which are published do
not reach the student. As a result, the responsibility for production of books
has gone out of the hands of the government. For all practical purposes the
production and distribution of textbooks is happening outside the state
structures. Even though they are supposed to use textbooks produced by the
government, the private schools are not doing so because government agencies
have not been able to cater to the huge requirement of textbooks for schools in
Bihar. Shortages and delays in production have thus legitimised the production
of textbooks by private organisations. There is very little attempt to remedy
the complete mismanagement in the preparation and production of textbooks, in
the political as well as administrative spheres.5
Very few states approve textbooks written and produced by other
individuals or organisations. Even in the states where such a provision exists,
it is done only after the books are examined first by a group of experts in a
workshop and the opinion is taken to the state-level Textbook and Syllabus
Committee for final perusal and approval. It is only in the states of Delhi,
Haryana, West Bengal, Nagaland and Himachal Pradesh that private unaided schools
are free to adopt textbooks of their choice though there is no particular
procedure for regulating the adoption of books. In all other states, the schools
have to adopt the state-approved textbooks. But to some extent this prescription
is only notional, as it is linked to the syllabus prescribed for the final board
examination. Beyond the use of the state-prescribed textbooks, private unaided
schools are free to adopt additional or supplementary books.
Mechanisms for Textbooks Used by Schools Outside the Government
System
The non-government schools are of a wide variety. Some are run
by private managements which have a chain of schools. These chains are sometimes
citywide or statewide and sometimes countrywide. Besides, there are schools run
by various religious and social organisations. Some schools are run by Christian
missionary groups of different denominations. Then there are madrassas run by
different Muslim councils or groups and there are Saraswati Shishu Mandirs run
by Vidya Bharati, the education wing of the RSS. This variety is made even more
complex by those chains of schools which focus on a particular language or
subject, like Sanskrit Pathshalas. The method of selecting textbooks in these
schools is as varied as their management. Those schools which fall under any
council or board or trust choose books as per the directions of the latter. But
these councils/boards/trusts do not have a uniform method. Some of them
prescribe specific books for various subjects whereas some others just adopt the
government-approved books and yet some others choose a combination of the two,
that is, they adopt government-approved books for some subjects but for other
subjects they prescribe specific books of their choice. Some boards/councils do
not prescribe to schools any specific books but give them a syllabus or
curriculum framework in the form of guidelines and the school principals, in
consultation with teachers, decide upon the prescription of textbooks for their
respective schools. There are several chains of schools run by private trusts
which adopt government-approved books. Vidya Bharati/Saraswati Shishu Mandirs,
Darul Uloom Deoband, Nadwatul Ulama, etc not only prescribe specific books for
their schools, they also publish them. The Deeni Taleemi Council prescribes and
publishes some specific books, mainly for religious education, but for the other
subjects it prescribes the books approved by the Uttar Pradesh Basic Shiksha
Parishad and Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad. The Council of
Anglo-Indian Schools provides a curriculum and leaves the choice of textbooks to
the schools supported by it.
There is hardly any regulation or regulatory mechanism for the
textbooks and textual materials used in schools outside the government system.6
In all the states except Gujarat, non-government schools have
private publishers providing teaching and learning aids for teachers and
students. There is a flourishing private industry that thrives on the prescribed
textbooks of the centre and state. Textbooks prepared by private publishers
range all the way from being shadow books of the NCERT/states’ books to
kunjis, workbooks and guidebooks. Private publishers visit the schools with
their books, teachers judge the books and on the basis of consensus books are
selected. Private publishers informally visit the faculty members and inform
them about the books, place specimen copies before them and request them to
suggest books to the students. Students generally for examination purposes
purchase these books.7
In actual practice, many private schools use books published by
private agencies either as supplementary materials or even as substitutes. These
books have not gone through any process of government approval. Many schools use
private books along with the state government textbooks, others use them as
substitutes while still others use private publishers’ books only where
government textbooks are not available for that particular subject at that level
– for example, Environmental Studies for Classes I and II or Moral Science,
General Knowledge, Drawing, etc.
Supplementary workbooks and kunjis are freely available
as are dictionaries, question banks, answer banks, guess papers printed by a
host of publishers from Nai Sadak which has emerged as a parallel textbook
centre. These kunjis/supplementary workbooks are available on sale for
each of these books, which may or may not be prescribed by the school but
publishers market these through the tuition routes.8
Teachers are also known to unofficially nudge children towards a
particular set of kunjis. Some of these books are at least twice as
expensive as the government textbooks. There is a flourishing market for
kunjis in the states as well. These are generally of poor quality,
unregulated and expensive. In Maharashtra, for instance, while the prescribed
social sciences textbooks in History, Geography and Civics separately are priced
between Rs 10-12 each, the kunjis cost Rs 30-40 each. The majority of
children buy both. This publishing usually begins from Class VI but of late
there are kunjis from Class IV.
Some schools run by religious and social organisations, such as
Vidya Bharati schools, are affiliated to the CBSE or their local State Boards.
For instance, in Rajasthan, the school authorities say that they recommend NCERT
or SCERT books to the students. Value education books are written by some of the
authors who have been identified by the parental organisations of the schools,
like the DAV College Management Committee, Delhi, Bharatiya Vidya Samiti,
Rajasthan, Vidya Bharati Sanskriti Shiksha Sansthan and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,
Mumbai. School authorities also argue that [the selection of] books of private
publishers which they suggest or recommend to the students is based upon
decisions taken by faculty members.
There are a large number of madrassas all over India. At present
there are official Boards of Madrassa Education in Assam, Bihar, West Bengal,
Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. A large number of madrassas come within their
jurisdiction and subsist on government funds. But in the rest of the country,
they are being run on private charity. The NCERT has no provision for a Board
administering the curriculum of madrassas in India. State governments like Uttar
Pradesh do appoint such Boards but Delhi, for instance, does not.9
Delhi contains around 40 madrassas, of which a handful, like
Rabiya Madrassa, is open to girls.10
There are two types of madrassas, those that follow the NCERT syllabus (Urdu
medium) and those teaching only manqulat (religious education).
Madrassas following the NCERT syllabus have to teach with
translations of English textbooks.11
Those teaching religious education follow a curriculum dating back to the
18th century. It includes the Koran, Fiqh (Jurisprudence), Sarf
and Nahw (Arabic Literature and Grammar) and Tarikh (History from
the Prophet to Khilafat-e-Rashida, 610-661 CE). As the qualifications
provided by these madrassas are not recognised elsewhere, they prepare students
only to become teachers themselves in these schools or to become imams,
muezzins, khatibs, kazis and muftis.12
Some Important Issues
It is important to recognise that the states have come a long
way in improving the practices related to printing and production of textbooks.
But there is no proper direction in the policies and practices related to
preparation and use of textbooks in schools. All the states have established
mechanisms for the selection, publication and approval of textual materials. But
the mechanisms and processes vary from state to state. It is a mixed picture
with regard to which body will approve the textbooks. Almost every state has,
through legislation, created state agencies/bodies for syllabus preparation and
textbooks.
What is important to note is that these processes and mechanisms
are all rather mechanically followed by the state agencies without much regard
for the substance and content of textbooks. What is of real concern is that
there is no way of assessing whether the textbooks actually adhere to the aims
of education policy. Also, there appears to be very little application of mind
with regard to the selection of material. The State Boards or SCERTs appoint
expert committees to prepare the curriculum. The processes are all in place but
the content is not of good quality or even always agreeable. This is partly
because of the overwhelming emphasis on form with very little attention being
devoted to content of textbooks and supplementary materials.
Another disturbing fact is that the free space permitted in the
system is often abused for partisan purposes by sectarian organisations and
schools affiliated to them. Such organisations exploit the fact of the palpable
lack of critical scrutiny of the substance to smuggle in textual materials that
dangerously undermine the aims of education and even vitiate the constitutional
framework.
It appears necessary to issue a set of national guidelines to
ensure that the core reading and learning material made available to children
and teachers in schools scrupulously conform to constitutional values and
educational policies and ideals. However, it must continue to be the
responsibility of state governments to ensure that they are not flouted by
cultural and social organisations which have established their schools and use
privately published books within the state or by private educational
establishments. n
______________________________________
Notes
1 This section on institutional arrangements and regulatory
mechanisms has gained much from a Note prepared by R. Govinda and Mona Sedwal,
‘Preparation, Production and Prescription of Textbooks for School Education in
India’, NIEPA.
2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.
5 Bihar Report.
6 Some of this information is based on responses of SCERTs, SIEs,
SIETs (State Institutes of Educational Technology) to the questionnaire sent by
the CABE Subcommittee to elicit information on regulatory mechanisms in the
states, 2005.
7 Information from Janaki Rajan’s Note submitted to the CABE
Committee.
8 Ibid.
9 Report on Delhi Madrassas.
10 Ibid, p. 2. 11 Ibid, p. 6. 12 Ibid.
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