Thiruvananthapuram: The higher secondary Plus-Two (Class 12) textbooks are yet to be delivered to schools in Kerala even as those for classes up to 10 were distributed before the start of the 2023-24 academic year.
Schools had placed the order for the required number of textbooks at the end of the last academic year itself. Teachers have been complaining that the situation is such that they have to take copies of last year's books and give these to students in order to teach.
Last year, Plus-Two textbooks were delivered to the schools by the end of May itself.
C-APT, which is an autonomous body of the Government of Kerala, has the contract for printing and distributing the books prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
SCERT director Dr R K Jayaprakash said that the printing of SCERT textbooks has been completed and that the C-APT will deliver these to schools this month itself.
"There was a delay in obtaining the soft copy of the NCERT textbooks for printing in the wake of the controversies related to the omission of certain portions," the director clarified.
The SCERT is printing and supplying 44 textbooks of the NCERT after obtaining their copyrights. Classes up to the 10th Standard are prepared by the State.
As reported earlier the NCERT had removed lessons on the Gujarat riots, Emergency, Mughal history, and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, and references to Nathuram Godse from the syllabus for the 12th Standard. Remarks that Mahatma Gandhi did not like Hindu nationalists and that extreme proponents of the Hindutva ideology had opposed Gandhi’s concept of Hindu-Muslim harmony were also removed from the text.