NCERT Defends Right To Amend Textbooks Citing Copyright Ownership, Rejects Ex-Advisors' Request To Remove Their Names

In response to objections raised by two former chief advisors regarding the political science textbooks, the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) asserted their right to make changes based on copyright ownership.

The council emphasised that the textbooks are the product of a collective effort and therefore the withdrawal of association by any one member is not possible.

The former advisors sought to have their names removed from the books due to what they described as "irrational cuts and large deletions", reports Indian Express.

Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra Yadav, both former chief advisors for the political science books for classes 9 to 12 that were published in 2006-07, expressed their concerns in a letter to the NCERT director D S Saklani.

They stated that the recent textbook rationalisation exercise lacked any pedagogic justification and expressed embarrassment at being associated with what they termed "mutilated and academically dysfunctional" books.

In response to the concerns raised by the former chief advisors, the Council released a statement on Friday (9 June) night.

The statement highlighted that the textbook development committees, of which Palshikar and Yadav were members, ceased to exist once the books were published.

The copyright for the educational materials has since remained with the Council independent of the committee, it said.

It further stated that all members of the textbook development committee had agreed to this arrangement in writing.

"During the year 2005-2008, Textbook Development Committees (TDCs) were constituted by the NCERT for development of textbooks in various subjects for all classes. These committees were purely academic in nature and existed until the textbooks were developed," the NCERT said in the statement.

"After the textbooks were published by the NCERT, their copyright remained vested with the NCERT independent of the Textbook Development Committee (TDC)," it added.

"All members of the Textbook Development Committees (TDCs) had given their concurrence on this through written undertakings. Therefore, the roles of the members of the Textbook Development Committees in various capacities.... was limited to advising how to design and develop the textbooks or contributing to the development of their contents and not beyond this," the council said.

Textbooks at the school level are ‘developed’ based on the state of our knowledge and understanding on a given subject, the council said.

"Therefore, at no stage individual authorship is claimed, hence the withdrawal of association by any one is out of question," it added.

The terms of these Textbook Development Committees (TDCs) have ended since the date of their first publication, the council said.

"However, NCERT acknowledges their academic contribution and only because of this, for the sake of record, publishes names of all Textbook Development Committee (TDC) members in each of its textbook," it added.

The council added that as the copy-right owner of all its textbooks, it adopts "clear procedures" to make correction or changes from time to time depending on feedbacks received from teachers, students etc.

Further, the corrections or changes are also made on identification of factual inaccuracies, incompatible expression based on core values as recommended for textbook development etc.

NCERT added that it has been doing so on a regular basis for its reprint editions.