Only students in Classes 3 and 6 will receive new textbooks for the upcoming academic year of 2024-25, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) confirmed on March 22, in a circular sent to all schools affiliated with the board. The new textbooks are being formulated by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The NCERT had earlier planned to introduce new textbooks for all grades up to Class 12 in the upcoming academic year; the deadline for submitting drafts to the NCERT by all curricular area groups responsible for drafting textbooks was February 10. However, the CBSE circular has now made it clear that there will be no change in the curriculum and textbooks for other classes for the coming academic year, which will commence on April 1, 2024.
The Hindu had earlier reported that NCERT would only introduce new textbooks only for Classes 3 and 6 in the new academic year
Bridge course for transition
The NCERT informed the CBSE on March 18 that new syllabi and textbooks for Grades 3 and 6 are currently under development and will soon be released. “Consequently, schools are advised to follow these new syllabi and textbooks for classes three and six in place of textbooks published by NCERT till 2023,” the circular said.
The NCERT is also developing a bridge course for Class 6 and concise guidelines for Class 3, in order to facilitate a seamless transition for students to new pedagogical practices and areas of study aligned with the National Curriculum Framework 2023.
“These resources will be disseminated to all schools online once they are received from NCERT. The Board will also organise capacity building programmes for school heads and teachers to orient them with the new teaching learning perspectives according to National Education Policy 2020,” the CBSE circular said.
Curriculum note
The CBSE has also released a note on the curriculum for Classes 9 to 12. For 2024-25, for Classes 9 and 10, the Board prescribed that the compulsory subjects are two languages, Social Science, Maths, and Science. One skill subject or elective is optional, and that may include Retail, Information Technology, Marketing & Sales, Banking, Finance and Artificial Intelligence. Currently, a third language is optional, while Health, Physical Education, Work Experience, and Art education are compulsory subjects, with only school-based internal assessment.
For Classes 11 and 12, CBSE said that students must take two languages in addition to three compulsory subjects. Students can choose a third language or elective subjects from a pool of languages, academic and skill subjects. Also, Health and PE, Work Experience and General Studies are compulsory subjects having only internal assessment.
Cross-curricular linkages
Creating cross-curricular linkages is vital to learning as they help to connect prior knowledge with new information, the CBSE said. “For example, mathematical data handling and interpretation can be effectively applied in geography and science. Children can write better-framed answers in history, geography and science when they have learnt how to write explanations/ short descriptions in a language,” the note on curriculum said.
Similarly, life skills such as empathy, problem solving, and interpersonal communications can be easily integrated with the study of literature and other areas, it added.
Outcome-based assessment
As the CBSE is progressively allowing more space for ‘learning outcome based’ assessment in place of textbook driven assessment, question papers for Board examinations have more questions based on real-life situations, requiring students to apply, analyse, evaluate and synthesise information as per the stipulated outcomes, it said.
“The core competencies to be assessed in all questions, however, will be from the prescribed syllabus and textbooks recommended therein. This will eliminate predictability and rote learning to a large extent,” the CBSE maintained.
