- Saturday, April 20, 2024
The National Council of Educational Research and Training also omitted the chapter on period classification of elements from the science textbooks
By: Shubham Ghosh
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous organisation of the Indian government, has decided to drop some key chapters in both science and social sciences from textbooks of Class 10 as part of a “rationalisation” exercise.
It has been reported that the council deleted chapters on the periodic classification of elements, sources of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from the science textbooks and those on democracy and diversity, popular struggles and movements, political parties and challenges to democracy from political science textbooks.
NCERT has said that it has been carrying out the exercise “rationalisation of contents in the textbooks” — across all classes to reduce load on students in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In view of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is imperative to reduce content load on students. The National Education Policy 2020, also emphasises reducing the content load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with creative mindset. In this background, NCERT has undertaken the exercise to rationalise the textbooks across all classes,” the council said, defending the move.
Earlier this year, the NCERT was criticised for controversially dropping Darwin’s theory of evolution from its Class 10 textbooks.
It also made other controversial omissions, including mention of Maulana Azad, a freedom fighter and India’s first education minister, from a revised textbook of political science published by the NCERT. Besides, chapters on history of Mughal courts, references to the Gujarat riots of 2002, the Naxalite movement and other Dalit writers were also omitted.
