Govts instructed to disaffiliate schools violating HW guidelines:Centre tells HC

The Centre on Monday submitted in the Madras High Court that it has instructed all state governments and Union Territories to disaffiliate schools prescribing homework in subjects other than recommended by the National Council for Educational Research and Training for classes 1 to 5.

The Human Resource Development ministry informed the High Court that the instruction has been sent to governments through a communication dated October 5.

The submission was made on the plea moved by advocate M Purushothaman seeking direction to CBSE schools to follow only NCERT syllabus and not to give homework up to class II.

As per the communication, governments are mandated to formulate 'Children School Bag Policy' to reduce the weight of the school bags in line with the guidelines issued by Telangana and Maharashtra governments.

This apart, the state and Union Territories have been directed to form special squads to inspect schools and prevent use of non-prescribed books.

In addition to this, the Centre also informed the court that a national level committee has been constituted headed by Ranjana Arora, department head, curriculum development and research in school and teacher education and teacher professional development, NCERT for framing of the 'children school bag' policy.

Recording the submission, Justice N Kirubakaran posted the plea to October 24 for further hearing.