BAREILLY: Months after making NCERT books compulsory for all affiliated madrassas from this academic session, the state government has now said that it will not be providing free books to aided minority institutes. There are 560 government-aided madrassas in UP and their students or managements will have to personally bear the expense of NCERT textbooks.Rahul Gupta, registrar of UP Board of Madrassa Education, said, “Students and managements of 560 aided madrassas will have to purchase these books at their own expense. It has already been made clear that question papers will be set from NCERT books for modern subjects and Urdu. These books can be downloaded from NCERT website or can be directly bought from vendors.”From this academic, NCERT books have been made compulsory for modern subjects like mathematics, science, English, computer science and social science. A letter issued by Monika Garg, principal secretary, UP Minority Welfare Department, on May 30 to all district minority welfare officers, said that the UP Board of Madrassa Education has included NCERT books in the syllabus from 2018-19 academic session “to improve quality and bring uniformity in modern education among minority institutions”.Meanwhile, the government-aided madrassas will continue to receive free books for class 1-8 from basic education council. However, teachers say that these books are of hardly any use as exam papers will be based on NCERT syllabus. Deewan Saheb Jaman Khan, state general secretary of Teachers’ Association Madaris-e-Arabia Uttar Pradesh , said, “After NCERT books were made compulsory, we thought that the government will provide these textbooks for free. There is no point of providing basic education council books to students when exam papers will be set from NCERT books. Majority of students in madrassas come from BPL families and cannot afford expensive books.”Abdul Salam Khan, manager, Madrassa Ishat-ul-uloom in Bareilly , said, “Though the academic session started in April, we have been teaching students from books provided by basic education council. NCERT books are not available in the market and our staff is not trained to teach from these books.”Mufti Mohammed Salim Noori, a teacher at a Bareilly-based madrassa and spokesperson of Dargah Aala Hazart, said, “When the government promises free education for students, it should provide free NCERT books too. Not all kids can afford to buy expensive textbooks.”

Stay updated with all the Lucknow Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.