NCERT criticised for withholding Hindi‑medium Class 9 Maths and Science textbooks

Nearly two months after the commencement of the 2026 academic session, the National Council of Educational Research and Training has yet to furnish the revised Hindi‑medium Class 9 Mathematics and Science textbooks, a lapse that has provoked sustained censure from educators, parents, and policy observers alike.

The absence of these essential instructional volumes has compelled teachers to revert to ad‑hoc translation of English‑language materials, thereby engendering pedagogical confusion, eroding curricular continuity, and jeopardising the preparedness of pupils for the imminent July unit examinations and the September half‑yearly assessments. Consequently, students embarking upon the summer vacation commencing on May twenty‑third find themselves bereft of the textual foundations requisite for revision, a circumstance that amplifies existing inequities between Hindi and English medium cohorts and threatens to widen the achievement gap that long‑standing educational statisticians have documented with disquieting regularity.

When queried regarding the chronology of the publishing process, NCERT officials have furnished only perfunctory assurances that the textbooks are undergoing final editorial verification, a response that, while couched in bureaucratic decorum, offers little substantive insight into the procedural bottlenecks that have evidently stalled the dissemination of material to Hindi‑medium institutions. Such verbal minimalism, coupled with the conspicuous omission of any publicly posted digital copies, betrays an institutional inertia that seems more attuned to preserving procedural propriety than to fulfilling the constitutional mandate that education be rendered equally accessible to all linguistic constituencies.

The present impasse must be viewed against a backdrop of chronic disparities wherein Hindi‑medium schools routinely receive delayed curricular resources, a pattern that resonates with similar administrative lacunae observed in the distribution of public health pamphlets to rural clinics, thereby illuminating a systemic predisposition to marginalise non‑English speaking populations. This recurrent neglect not only contravenes the spirit of the Right to Education Act but also erodes public confidence in the very mechanisms that purport to democratise knowledge, an erosion that is magnified when governmental pronouncements proclaim universal coverage while on‑the‑ground realities reveal persistent gaps.

In the same vein, recent reports from state education departments have highlighted delayed disbursement of teacher allowances and the postponement of infrastructure upgrades in several district schools, a cascade of administrative oversights that collectively signal a governance paradigm more preoccupied with procedural formalities than with the lived exigencies of learners and educators. Consequently, the unfinished saga of the Hindi‑medium textbooks becomes emblematic of a broader malaise whereby policy articulation outpaces implementation, and where the rhetoric of inclusive development is repeatedly undercut by the inertia of outdated bureaucratic practices.

Given that the academic calendar mandates the conduction of July unit tests and September half‑yearly examinations, one must inquire whether the delay in provisioning essential textbooks constitutes a violation of statutory educational timelines prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education and associated statutory instruments. Moreover, the persistent reliance on English‑language source texts for Hindi‑medium instruction raises the question of whether institutional procurement policies adequately account for linguistic diversity, or whether they merely perpetuate a colonial legacy that discounts the pedagogical rights of millions of vernacular learners. In light of the documented disparities in the distribution of health awareness leaflets to rural populations, one is compelled to scrutinise whether the mechanisms governing educational material dissemination suffer from analogous systemic neglect, thereby reflecting a broader structural indifference to non‑urban constituencies. Thus, does the present debacle expose a deficiency in the legal safeguards envisaged by the Right to Education Act, compel a revision of accountability standards for central educational bodies, and demand a transparent audit of resource allocation across linguistic demographics?

Considering that the delayed textbooks have already forced educators to improvise lesson plans through unsanctioned translations, one must question whether the existing teacher training frameworks provide sufficient guidance for such exigencies, or whether they leave practitioners vulnerable to ad‑hoc pedagogical improvisation. Furthermore, the absence of any official digital repository for the Hindi‑medium textbooks invites scrutiny of the Ministry of Education’s commitment to leveraging information technology in bridging educational inequities, especially when comparable digital platforms for English‑medium content have been operational for years. In addition, the timing of the release, coinciding with the commencement of summer vacations, raises the issue of whether calendar coordination between textbook production cycles and academic schedules has been sufficiently institutionalised, or remains a peripheral consideration subject to arbitrary delays. Consequently, should legislators enact clearer statutory deadlines for textbook publication, mandate periodic performance audits of the NCERT, and empower independent bodies to adjudicate grievances of Hindi‑medium stakeholders, thereby ensuring that procedural assurances translate into tangible educational equity?

Published: May 24, 2026

Published: May 24, 2026