National Council of Educational Research and Training +

NEW DELHI: The next Census is a little more than three years away but NCERT’s social science textbook for class 8 still quotes literacy data from 2001 and the availability of housing, electricity and piped water from 1994. Its foreword bears the date November 30, 2007, and the book has been in print for 10 years without changes.Come April, that will change asis updating all 182 of its textbooks. The chapters will be brought up to date and new developments like Goods and Services Tax will be included. Altogether, NCERT has made 1,334 changes at an average rate of seven changes per book.NCERT director Hrushikesh Senapaty told TOI the texts will be ready within a month and sent for printing immediately thereafter. They will be delivered to schools and individuals by March, before the start of the new academic session in April 2018. “Any student or any individual can place orders and we have started receiving orders. The books will be delivered via post as they need to be delivered to remote areas as well.”The changes to the texts include updates, corrections and additions. The updates will take care of old statistics, economic data, etc, while the additions will introduce topics like demonetisation, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and Swachhta. However, more than half of the changes involve correction of spelling errors and simplification of language.The Council has already got orders for more than 2 crore books on its website for next year, as against a total print run of 4.63 crore books for the 2017 session. NCERT director Hrushikesh Senapaty said they anticipate a much higher demand: “Assuming all the CBSE schools go for the books, we expect a demand of approximately 13 crore this year.”NCERT has increased the number of its printers and vendors to fulfil the higher demand. “Quality-wise also we use 80gsm (grams per square metre) paper, which is higher than private and other state publishers,” Senapaty said.