Finding the explanation submitted by 133 schools in reply to the show cause notice slapped on them by the education department regarding defiance of Uttarakhand High Court (HC) order on the mandatory implementation of National Council of Education and Research (NCERT) books unsatisfactory, the Director General (DG) school education, captain Alok Shekhar Tiwari has warned that the department may cancel the no-objection certificate (NOC) issued to them.
These schools have obtained the affiliation of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on the basis of NOC provided by the State education department and the cancellation of the NOC would put the affiliation of the schools into jeopardy.
The DG school education said that the explanations submitted by the schools suggest that the schools are implementing only those books which are not published by the NCERT.
In the explanation, the schools have claimed that they have implemented books of private publishers in subjects like Arts, Hindi Grammar, General Knowledge, Computer, IT and Physical Education.
Tiwari said that the reports submitted by the inquiry teams suggest that the prices of these books were exorbitantly higher than the NCERT books which is violation of HC order.
He said that the maximum price of NCERT books from class I to VIII is Rs 50 while the maximum rates of books in classes IX and X is Rs 165 while for Classes XI and XIII, the maximum price of a textbook is Rs 220.
He ordered that the rates of non-NCERT books should not be more than 10 percent of NCERT books.
In the warning notice, the DG said that these schools have put unwarranted pressure on the parents of the students to purchase expensive non- NCERT books.
It is pertinent to mention here that the education department had conducted an inquiry in the districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital following the order of HC on NCERT books. On the basis of the findings of the inquiry, the department on September 18 had issued notices to 181 schools in these districts.
In the notice, the department had found these schools of not following the order of Uttarakhand High Court (HC) on NCERT textbooks and warned of cancelling the NOCs issued to these schools.
The department had asked these schools to submit their replies before October 4. Out of these 181 schools, 133 schools had submitted their explanations to the show cause notice.