The Congress on Friday criticised the Centre over the delay in publishing new Class 6 textbooks, alleging the Education Ministry is “sabotaging” the education of children after doing the same with the examination process through the “incompetent” National Testing Authority.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh hit out at the government over the issue, saying that either the “rot runs deep”, or the incompetence scales new heights everyday.

In a social media post, he said, “After sabotaging the examination process through the incompetent National Testing Authority, the non-biological PM's Education Ministry is sabotaging the education of our children.”

“Even as the school year has begun, the NCERT - the National (read Nagpur) Council of Educational Research and Training - has failed to publish new textbooks for Science, Mathematics, and Social Sciences for Class 6 students,” Ramesh said.

The textbooks themselves have not been finalised by the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), he said.

Ramesh pointed out that printing will take another 10 to 15 days. Officials expect a delay of two months before they can make new books available to students, he claimed.

“Either the rot runs deep, or the incompetence scales new heights everyday!” Ramesh said. Later, Ramesh shared a media report which said the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is working on a proposal to recreate ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha' in a virtual format via a web platform.

“They cannot ensure leak-proof Parikshas, and they cannot ensure schoolchildren get their textbooks on time -- but this is what the Ministry of Education is spending its time on.

The blame for these warped priorities lies entirely on the non-biological Pradhan Mantri,” Ramesh said.

His remarks come a day after Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan reviewed the development of school textbooks in accordance with the New Curriculum Framework (NCF) at a meeting here. The meeting came in the backdrop of a delay in the publication of Class 6 textbooks that were supposed to be taught from April and are yet to hit the market.

 The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had earlier announced that new textbooks for Classes 3 and 6 will be introduced from the 2024-25 academic session.

“For the academic year 2024-25, new and engaging textbooks will be introduced in Classes 3 and 6.

The textbook development work is in the final phase and nine textbooks for Grades 3 and 6 are already available.

The remaining eight will be available very soon,” a senior Ministry of Education (MoE) official said.

The NCERT had an initial aim of releasing the new textbooks based on the NCF 2023 only for Classes 3 and 6 this year. While the textbooks for Class 3 are available in the market, those for Class 6 have been delayed.

It was only this week that the NCERT released new English and Hindi textbooks for Class 6 in the middle of the academic session.