The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has formed a committee with notable individuals such as philanthropist and Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murthy, musician Shankar Mahadevan, and chairman of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM) Bibek Debroy. This committee also includes Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the EAC-PM and Chamu Krishna Shastry, a founding member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliated Samskrita Bharati. Chamu Krishna Shastry is also the head of the committee focused on promoting Indian languages.
Mahesh Chandra Pant, the chancellor of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), has been appointed as the chairperson of the 19-member National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC). The notification for this committee was made by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an independent government organisation, on July 21.
The currently used NCERT textbooks are all based on the 2005 National Curriculum Framework (NCF). The primary aim of the NSTC is to harmonise the curriculum with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE), which was developed under the guidance of the K Kasturirangan-led steering committee as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Although the final version of the NCF-SE has been submitted to the Union Ministry of Education, its public release is still pending. The draft version was revealed in April.
The responsibilities of the NSTC include creating the school syllabus, textbooks, and teaching materials for Classes 3 to 12. Additionally, it will revise the existing textbooks for Classes 1 and 2 to ensure a smooth transition from Class 2 to 3. According to the terms of reference for the NSTC, the materials developed by the committee, including textbooks, will be published and distributed by the NCERT. The NSTC is also authorised to establish sub-groups, known as curricular area groups, to create textbooks for each subject in the school syllabus.