Sudha Murthy and Shankar Mahadevan among members of NCERT’s 19-person panel for new textbook development

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has formed a 19-member committee, including Sudha Murthy of Infosys Foundation, renowned musician Shankar Mahadevan, and economist Sanjeev Sanyal, to revise textbooks in accordance with the updated curriculum. Chaired by MC Pant, the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) will be responsible for creating educational materials for classes 3 to 12. The NSTC, assisted by Curricular Area Groups (CAGs), will develop subject-specific content and collaborate with the NCERT for publication, following the guidelines provided. The committee’s focus is to align the curriculum with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) based on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Manjul Bhargav, a Princeton University mathematics professor, co-chairs the committee with members including mathematician Sujatha Ramdorai, badminton player U Vimal Kumar, and others. The removal of certain topics from NCERT textbooks in May raised concerns, prompting opposition allegations of politically motivated censorship. The NCERT defended the changes as being based on expert recommendations and acknowledged any unintentional omissions.