NCERT promotes private coaching and dummy schools: Academics criticise reduced school syllabus

The NCERT, a wing of the education ministry, has been accused of promoting private coaching and “dummy schools” through its actions at a time when the government’s stated policy is to curb the coaching industry.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training, whose textbooks are used by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and 15 state school boards, has for the third straight year continued with its reduced, Covid-time syllabus for Classes IX to XII.

This is forcing students to take up private coaching since the reduced school syllabus is inadequate to prepare them for competitive exams like the NEET, JEE and the CUET, two students, a parent and multiple academics told The Telegraph.

The NCERT move, academics said, goes against the stand taken against private coaching by the National Education Policy 2020.

The NCERT had reduced the entire school syllabus in 2022 by about 40 per cent, citing the need to ease the burden on students following the pandemic-induced disruption of schooling, and has not yet reverted to the old syllabus for the higher classes.

Academics had severely criticised the way the syllabus was reduced, saying that chapters had been selectively removed in keeping with the BJP’s ideology. Among the axed content was text on the Mughal rulers, the global history of Islam, the history of caste discrimination and the ban on the RSS following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.

The NCERT has decided to prescribe new books for Classes III and VI for the 2024-25 academic session, having already introduced new books for Classes I and II. But for the remaining classes, the “rationalised” (reduced) syllabus will continue, the CBSE has informed its affiliated schools.

Sudha Acharya, principal of ITL Public School in Delhi, said “students feel compelled to take the help of private coaching” because of the gap between the reduced school curriculum and the syllabus for the college entrance examinations.

“Students are seeking transfer from regular schools after Class X to ‘dummy’ schools,” she said.

“Dummy” schools are institutions that enrol Class XI and XII students and mark them present while they attend private coaching centres — some of them operating from the dummy schools’ classrooms — that prepare them for competitive exams.

A parent who last year got his daughter, a Class XI student, admitted to a dummy school in Dwarka, Delhi, said he would not have shifted her had the NCERT reverted to the old syllabus. “The pre-2022 school syllabus was the same as that for the competitive exams,” he said.

A teacher at a coaching institute said the number of students seeking expensive private coaching was rising every year.

The CBSE, which reports to the education ministry, withdrew affiliation to 20 dummy schools on Friday.