NEW DELHI: India’s apex child rights body, National Commission For Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), has asked the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations - country’s largest private education board--- to immediately revoke its present syllabi for classes I through VIII and switch over to the curriculum prescribed by either NCERT or state education councils.
NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said that the decision has been taken after a detailed inquiry spanning over 18 months confirmed that the board had been violating section 29 of the Right to Education Act, 2005.
Section 29 of the RTE act stipulates that “the curriculum and the evaluation procedure for elementary education shall be laid down by an academic authority to be specified by the appropriate Government, by notification.”
“That academic authority can either be NCERT or SCERT but the CISCE has been following separate syllabi which it is not mandated to do,” said Kanoongo.
The development will affect about 10 lakh students in nearly 2900 CISCE affiliated schools ACROSS the country. The NCPCR has also asked the board to submit a compliance report within 15 days.
The schools under the board have been asked to notify the changed syllabi and textbooks on their website and the state education departments have been instructed to cancel their NOCs in case of noncompliance.
Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary of the CISCE said that his office has received the order.
“I am travelling but will examine it and take a decision upon my return to Delhi,” he said.
The order state that on two occasions the board was asked to explain its position; it said that the curricula had been prepared by experts “in consultation with personnel from the NCERT.”
Subsequently, notices were also served to the NCERT, responding to which it confirmed that it had indeed helped the board in preparing the syllabi but also said that its curriculum for pre-primary, primary and upper primary classes are “heavier” than prescribed under the National Curriculum Framework, 2005.
The Council, the order says, also said that “in no circumstances, NCERT endorses the curriculum developed by CISCE for their own schools”.