Mumbai: Central Board of Secondary Education’s commencement of the 2026-27 academic session on Wednesday has been marred by a nationwide crisis with not even a single Class IX student receiving a textbook.Physical books are yet to be issued by the board, leaving classrooms in a state of paralysis. Local booksellers said that “many parents have come and enquired about the books, but nothing is available at the moment”. A book depot owner in Bhandup said: “I have been emailing the board for months regarding the textbooks but I have not even received a response from them.”The new textbooks are currently unavailable online; all materials hosted on the NCERT website are now outdated versions of the previous curriculum.Pragya Singh, director of academics at the CBSE, refused to comment on the situation when contacted. TOI was told to contact the spokesperson of the board who asked for questions to be mailed to which no response has been received at the time of going to press.The delay has created a significant hurdle for educators. “You can’t teach in isolation; chapters are interlinked,” said Rashmi Panagria, principal of Skyline School in Sausar, Madhya Pradesh, emphasising that the lack of material disrupts the logical flow of the subjects. Echoing this sentiment, the principal of a CBSE school in Navi Mumbai noted that the absence of resources has made the start of the term nearly impossible to manage, stating, “It is becoming quite difficult to conduct classes effectively without textbooks in students’ hands.“While CBSE has issued rough draft syllabus books to a few schools covering basic topics, this is a temporary fix. The root of the shortage lies in the massive syllabus revision currently underway for Class IX — a process that has also been applied to Class XI this year.This administrative bottleneck mirrors the challenges faced during last year’s revamp for Classes VII and VIII. A similar delay saw Class VII textbooks finally reaching the markets as late as Oct.Parents now face “double trouble” as many have already enrolled their children in coaching classes. However, without official textbooks or curriculum clarity, instruction at these centers remains speculative, leaving the academic start for thousands of ninth graders effectively in limbo.
