CBSE News: Central Board of Secondary Education relaxes choice of textbooks

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has withdrawn a directive issued by its regional office asking is affiliated schools to follow only textbooks published by NCERT, bringing relief to private publishers. Read: CBSE schools will follow NCERT textbooks only from 2017-18 session 

The CBSE's Chennai region had issued a circular on 6th April on mandatory use of books published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

The private schools prescribe books published by private publishers like Oxford University Press, Orient BlackSwan, Macmillan, Navneet and Ratna Sagar.

The CBSE circular was challenged by some of the schools in Madras High Court which stayed the CBSE circular on 26th July. The board issued another circular on 29th July to cancel is earlier circular.

School education secretary Anil Swarup said, "The government schools are already using NCERT textbooks. These books are not mandatory for private schools."