Textbook job taken away from GCERT

AHMEDABAD: In a significant decision, the state education department has issued a government resolution (GR) that content of all school textbooks will be prepared and published by Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks (GSBST) alone. Currently, textbooks are being prepared by Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training (GCERT).
The decision comes after TOI ran a series - Error Terror - highlighting glaring bloopers and errors in the content of school books.
The state education minister had directed GCERT to immediately correct the errors pointed out by TOI in the series, which led to three reviewed and corrected versions of first semester social science textbooks for classes 6 to 8 in two months flat.
From this year, textbooks will be prepared and published by the textbooks board alone. The GR says that textbooks of classes 1-8 will be prepared and published by GSBST with review and consultative support of GCERT.
The GR says that following the recommendations of Prof Ravindra Dave, former director of UNESCO for education, there should be only one textbook per subject for classes 3-5. The bifurcation for the second semester should be given in the same book.
The GR also says that the teacher's edition should accompany the textbook and specific provisions for this should be made in the budget.
Officials of the textbook board said that it has formed a preliminary blueprint on how it will go ahead in preparing textbooks that are error free and have quality content.
"Textbooks will be prepared by our pool of experienced teachers. Here, we will make a crucial intervention and a committee of teachers from private schools and Kendriya Vidyalayas will be asked to review the content and make necessary changes. After this, it will be given to GCERT for another review," said a senior official.
Interestingly, with this GR, things have come a full circle as the textbook board earlier used to prepare books since 1997. In 2003-04, the task was given to GCERT after the textbook board was found to be indulging in nepotism and the quality of books had deteriorated.