Tag: NCERTs

NCERT’s decision to make ‘changes’ driven by divisive and partisan agenda: Historians

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New Delhi: Around 250 educationists and historians criticised the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) over its decision to revise textbooks. They said that removing the chapters was driven by a divisive and partisan agenda.
The historians demanded NCERT withdraw the decision. Significantly, some sections related to Mughals were removed from the Class 12th History textbooks, and paragraphs that contained information about the ban briefly imposed on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) by the then government after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi were omitted.
Romila Thapar, Jayati Ghosh, Mridula Mukherjee, Apoorvanand, Irfan Habib and Upinder Singh, among others, have started a signature campaign to protest against the decision and for its withdrawal.

On the other hand, the Democratic Teachers Front, an organisation of university-level teachers, said that if ‘WhatsApp University’ is given a free hand to devour Indian schools, colleges and universities, then Indian democracy will be seriously affected.
NCERT said that the change made in school books has not been done with the aim of making anyone happy or angry.
NCERT Chief Dinesh Prasad Saklani told IANS that the changes have been made purely on the basis of expert advice. He said that new books for all classes on the basis of the National Education Policy (NEP) will also be introduced and its work has been completed at the foundation level.
Saklani said that changes were not only made in History books but also in books of other subjects to reduce the burden faced by students. He stated that the changes are not based on any particular person, event, period or institution.
Saklani added that this is not a big change and all of them were made last year, keeping the Covid-19 pandemic in view and the academic loss faced by students worldwide, at all levels.

In such a situation, NCERT decided to revise the course on the basis of experts’ opinions to reduce the burden on students who would return to school after a long time, Saklani concluded.
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#NCERTs #decision #driven #divisive #partisan #agenda #Historians
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 9, 2023
NCERT’s revision of textbooks part of ‘saffronisation’ agenda: Kerala CM

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Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday strongly condemned the dropping of certain chapters and portions from NCERT class 12 textbooks and alleged that “complete saffronisation” of academic books was the objective behind the move.
Historical facts cannot be denied by just cutting out portions that are inconvenient (to some one) from textbooks, he said in a Facebook post.
Excluding certain portions and chapters from the textbooks with a political motive was not only a negation of history but also a condemnable move. It is evident that the objective behind such actions is the “complete saffronisation of textbooks”, the CM added.

In the hard-hitting post, Vijayan said it was clear whose interest was being served by the omission of portions about the assassination of the ‘Father of the Nation’ Mahatma Gandhi and the subsequent banning of the RSS, from the political science textbook of class 12.
Portions about the Mughal Empire were also cut down from the history textbook of the same class, he pointed out.
“The medieval history of India, excluding the Mughal Empire, is incomplete,” he said, alleging that medieval Indian history had always been an area that the Sangh Parivar had twisted and distorted.
The Kerala CM accused the NCERT of “whitewashing the fake history” created by the Sangh Parivar by excluding these portions.
The Sangh Parivar, through the textbooks, was trying to inculcate the politics of hatred and division into the minds of children, the Marxist veteran further charged.

Accusing the NCERT of supporting the distorted methodology of the RSS in writing history, Vijayan said strong protest needs to be registered against such moves which would otherwise undermine the secular education envisaged by the Constitution.
The NCERT recently dropped from its class 12 history textbook certain portions on Mahatma Gandhi and how his pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity “provoked Hindu extremists”. It also left out the portion where the government had placed a ban on the RSS after Gandhi’s assassination. The revision of textbooks by obfuscating facts has triggered a row.
“Gandhiji’s death had a magical effect on communal situation in the country”, “Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists” and “Organisations like RSS were banned for some time” are among the portions deleted from the textbook.
Portions referring to the Gujarat riots have also been dropped from the class 11 sociology textbook, months after NCERT removed the reference to the 2002 communal violence in two class 12 textbooks.
The Congress has accused the Centre of “whitewashing” and “distorting” history.
NCERT Chief Dinesh Saklani said the syllabus was “rationalised” in June last year itself, and there has been no trimming of the curriculum this year.
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#NCERTs #revision #textbooks #part #saffronisation #agenda #Kerala
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 7, 2023
NCERT’s scrapping of chapter on Mughals, attempt to change history: Jharkhand Cong

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Ranchi: The decision to drop lessons on Mughal courts from the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books is an attempt to change the nation’s history, alleged Avinash Pandey, Congress’s general secretary in-charge for Jharkhand on Monday.
Boards which use NCERT textbooks which include CBSE are expected to be impacted by the decision.
Uttar Pradesh has announced that government schools will adopt the NCERT’s new class 12 history textbooks in which portions about Mughal courts have been removed from this academic session.

As part of its “syllabus rationalisation” exercise last year, the NCERT, citing “overlapping” and “irrelevant” as reasons, dropped certain portions from the syllabus including lessons on Mughal courts from its class 12 textbooks.
Pandey told mediapersons that party senior leader Rahul Gandhi has taken this issue seriously and Congress will oppose the move.
Hitting out at Centre, Pandey said democracy is under threat in the country.
He said the party will launch its Jai Bharat Satyagraha Yatra from Lohardaga tomorrow and will create awareness among masses as to how opposition voices were being shut on raising issues in Parliament.
The Satyagraha Yatra will conclude on April 16, he said.

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#NCERTs #scrapping #chapter #Mughals #attempt #change #history #Jharkhand #Cong
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 4, 2023
UP schools adopt NCERT’s revised textbooks from current session

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Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh government schools will adopt from this academic session the NCERT’s new class 12 history textbooks in which portions about Mughal courts have been removed.
“We teach our students using NCERT books…whatever is there in the revised edition will be followed,” Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak said.
Additional Chief Secretary (basic and secondary education) Deepak Kumar confirmed the development. “We follow NCERT books and whatever is available in the revised edition, we will follow it in state schools from 2023-24 session,” Kumar told PTI.

As part of its “syllabus rationalisation” exercise last year, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), citing “overlapping” and “irrelevant” as reasons, dropped certain portions from the syllabus including lessons on Mughal courts from its class 12 textbooks.
Many of these changes were announced in early 2022 when the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) rationalised its syllabi in April. Besides schools under CBSE, some state boards also use NCERT textbooks.
Listing the changes, the NCERT, in a note, had said, “The content of the textbooks has been rationalised for various reasons, including overlapping with similar content in other subject areas in the same class, similar content included in the lower or higher classes on the same subject.
It also stated that difficulty level, content which is easily accessible to students without much intervention from teachers and can be learned by self-learning or peer-learning and content which is irrelevant in the present context have been removed.
In class 12 political science textbook, pages on the topic ‘Gujarat Riots’ have been excluded from the chapter titled ‘Recent Developments in Indian Politics’. The mention of the National Human Rights Commission report on the 2002 violence and the “raj dharma” remark by then Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee has been dropped from the textbook.

Also, chapters on Mughal courts in a history textbook, a poem on the Dalit movement and a chapter on the Cold War, are among the exclusions from the political science textbook.
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#schools #adopt #NCERTs #revised #textbooks #current #session
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 3, 2023