SCHOOLS CAN DIRECTLY ORDER BOOKS FROM NCERT PORTAL

From this year, schools across the country will place textbook orders with the NCERT directly online to ensure they are available in time to students for next year.

This would save parents paying extra money to source books from private publishers, often on account of non-availability of the NCERT books.

The portal, where the schools can place orders, is in the works. When in place, schools will also be able to track the movement of the books, right from placing an order to the delivery.

The portal, which is being created by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), will start taking orders for this year itself so that it is able to assess the total number of books it needs to publish.

Parents had complained to the human resource development ministry about schools forcing expensive books on them.

According to NCERT spokesperson Hemant Kumar, the portal is likely to be launched during the first week of August this year.

“This will enable approximately 19,000 CBSE-affiliated schools to upload their requirement of NCERT textbooks. The schools will be given one month’s time to upload their requirement. The data received will allow NCERT to assess the actual requirement of its textbooks,” he said.

According to officials, the NCERT portal will ensure that no complaint of unavailability of NCERT textbooks is received from across the country.

Officials further said that so far NCERT used to do the exercise on its own rather than asking schools to provide them the information.

There have been several complaints in the past about the nonavailability of NCERT books and schools end up recommending books by private publishers.