NCERT Online

NCERT goes online! The NCERT textbooks can now be viewed online. Even a decade back something like this would have been difficult to imagine.

The NCERT was set up way back in 1961 by the Government of India as an autonomous organization to assist and advise the centre and state on policies related to education and help in the implementation of the same. Over the years, the council has increasingly taken on the role of the introducing innovations in the field of education in areas of reforms and curriculum framework.

The NCERT online textbooks have made life easier for a lot of students. The availability of online NCERT textbooks has taken the student-focussed educational initiatives of NCERT to new heights. The NCERT as an organization is not new to initiatives in the area of educational technology.  The Central Institute of Educational Technology set up in 1984 is a constituent organization under NCERT that undertakes several technology-based educational initiatives. The knowledge explosion of the last decade has enabled a situation where the knowledge-base doubles every 2-3 years (source: UNESCO “ICT in Teacher Education”). The Council’s decision to introduce NCERT online textbooks can also be rightfully viewed as a first step towards weaving knowledge in a multi-disciplinary fashion.

With the introduction of online NCERT textbooks the Council has made an effort to make the source of learning more flexible than the traditional ones. The driving force behind a move like this may well be the increasing awareness that knowledge does not come from a central source, but that it actually emanates from all around us. The move to make available online NCERT textbooks is a step that recognizes the huge potential of the internet.

As expected, the NCERT online textbooks are a huge hit with both students and teachers. The students can now easily access the textbooks for all classes from class I to class XII. They are free to read these NCERT textbooks online or download them for free, as they are available in PDF format. Each chapter is available as a separate PDF file and can be opened by clicking on the chapter title in the table of contents. With the textbooks going online, students who were previously likely to use ‘non-availability of textbooks’ as an excuse for their poor performance in schools, now had no one to blame but themselves! So, it was time to dig in their heels and study. That is a good job done by NCERT online textbooks!

Cheers!