New curriculum for Classes 2, 3, 4, and 6

In school education, the Maharashtra State Board is also scheduled to introduce new textbooks based on the NCERT curriculum for four school grades for the 2026-27 academic year. If these changes are to be rolled out as per schedule, the next few months will call for some heavy lifting.

The Maharashtra state board has planned a shift to a new curriculum based on NCERT textbooks till 2029. In the coming academic year, the new syllabus will be implemented for Classes 2, 3, 4 and 6. Milind Naik, a member of the Maharashtra NEP steering committee and principal of Jnana Prabodhini School, told The Indian Express that the course material for the first version of textbooks for Classes 2, 3 and 6 are ready with only the designing, adding of pictures, and other such details remaining, while the work on the Class 4 textbook is ongoing.

However, these textbooks have been prepared on the draft curriculum released by the State Council of Educational Research and Training. The final curriculum with public feedback incorporated is yet to be released. Any changes in the draft curriculum will require a change in the textbooks prepared as well, confirmed Naik. He said the books for the Marathi medium should be ready in time but other mediums might take time.

Naik added that a change in examination pattern is also expected from the next year. “Competency-based examination should start from the next year. As per NEP, the questions asked in the question paper should not be based on memory. The question should not be like who and when, instead they should be based on how and why. Because the books are designed on similar principles.”