The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to issue advertisements in all leading newspapers stating that the court had banned homework for Class I and II students and that stringent action would be taken against schools if complaints were received with regard to violation of the court order.
Justice N. Kirubakaran issued the directive after observing that the CBSE’s circular about the ban may not serve any purpose unless the general public and NGOs were made aware of the order and encouraged to lodge complaints.
The judge said the advertisement should also publicise the order that no subject other than mathematics and language should be taught in Classes I and II and that students of Classes III to V could be taught environmental science as an additional subject.
Allowing a case filed by advocate M. Purushothaman, the judge had on May 29 ordered that none of the schools in the country, irrespective of the board to which they were affiliated, could prescribe homework for Classes I and II and teach more subjects than what had been recommended by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for primary classes.
However, when the matter came up for reporting compliance, he directed the CBSE alone to issue advertisements. A decision on implementing the order with respect to schools affiliated to other boards shall be taken on Tuesday, the judge said after Assistant Solicitor General G. Karthikeyan reported that State governments were not responding to his queries on the issue. Meanwhile, CBSE counsel G. Nagarajan informed the judge that though the CBSE had preferred a writ appeal against the entire order passed by him on May 29, it shall restrict the appeal to a third directive issued by him to its affiliated schools to follow only textbooks published by the NCERT for Classes I to XII and not those brought out by private publishers. The counsel stated that the directive to follow NCERT textbooks alone was in contravention of a Delhi High Court order which had permitted the CBSE-affiliated schools to follow private textbooks too.
Referring to the General Knowledge textbook of his daughter, studying in Class II in a private CBSE-affiliated school in Chennai, the petitioner said the book brought out by a private publisher contained “absolutely unnecessary” questions regarding actors Katrina Kaif, Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Rajinikanth and Daniel Radcliffe.