Govt's push against private publishers' books

School textbooks printed by private publishers cost, on an average, five times more than those from the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), reveals a comparative analysis conducted by the government.

A detailed analysis of all NCERT titles from Class 1 to 8 was done, that found in some cases, price difference was as high as nine times. It is mostly for students from Classes 1 to 8 that schools recommend "extra books" along with the NCERT ones, which is why the government is looking at reducing the burden.

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has been pushing schools to use more and more NCERT books.

But it has not been made mandatory. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) keeps bringing out circulars to remind schools to use more and more NCERT books.

"Some of the books that were analysed are Oxford, Ratnasagar and S Chand," read the survey report accessed by DNA.

The books were analysed for price, pages, size, text quality, cover paper, illustrations and other materials used.

Science books were found to be most expensive.

The analysis added that in terms of size and quality, NCERT books are comparable to private publisher books. It found that NCERT books have more child-friendly illustrations and provide children an opportunity to further explore resources for learning.

NCERT publishes 364 books annually in Hindi, English and Urdu. In order to fulfil the demand, the government has also launched an online portal on which books can be ordered by schools, parents or individuals, a year in advance and printing of books would be done accordingly.