Jaipur, Sep 11 (IANS): In view of the ongoing tussle between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the ruling Congress regarding the change of syllabus, the state government on Wednesday announced the implementation of the NCERT syllabus in schools from the next session.

The new syllabus will be implemented for classes VI to IX and Class XI.

Since the new session began, the two parties have been crossing swords over the issue. The BJP accused the Congress of tampering with history and glorifying one family in textbooks and belittling the role of freedom fighters such as Veer Savarkar while the Congress hit back with the allegation that the BJP is saffronising the education system.

State Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara told the media: "The English and Hindi medium books of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will be introduced in the government and private schools affiliated by the state government for class VI to IX and class XI as recommended by committees comprising of educationists.

For the board classes including X and XII, the course curriculum will not be changed for 2020-21. However, in 2021-22, the NCERT syllabus will be implemented in these classes too, he said.

Dotasara said that Rajasthan is the first state in the country where the initiative has been taken to reduce the burden of school bags. He informed that the pilot project to reduce the burden of school bags from class one to five has been launched from Jaipur.

Now, children have to take one book in place of different books. The weight of the old books of the students of class one has been reduced from 900 grams to 400 grams, from 950 grams to 300 grams in class two, 500 grams in place of 1.35 kilograms in class three, 500 in place of 1.45 kilograms in class four.

Overall, the weight of books from class one to five has been reduced from 5.9 kg to 2.2 kg. This experiment is constantly being reviewed. If successful, it will be implemented from class 1 to 12 across the state, he added.