Tag: Textbooks

Florida approves K-12 social studies textbooks after pressing publishers to tweak content

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“To uphold our exceptional standards, we must ensure our students and teachers have the highest quality materials available — materials that focus on historical facts and are free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a statement Tuesday.
The textbook adoption process for social studies was expected to face intense scrutiny in Florida following the state education agency denying dozens of proposed math textbooks last year for containing “impermissible” content, including lessons on critical race theory.
Conservatives in Florida, led by DeSantis, have ramped up criticism about what students are reading and learning in school, particularly surrounding race, gender, and sexual orientation through legislation and rulemaking alike. The Republican-dominated Legislature during its 2023 session passed a bill tightening rules for local book objections by requiring schools to yank challenged works within five days of someone flagging it, a shift opponents equate to “book banning.”
The state is also engaged in a high-profile dispute with the nonprofit College Board after state education department officials rejected its African American studies AP program for initially including coursework on queer theory and intersectionality. The objections angered many Black leaders across the country, with some accusing DeSantis of stoking a cultural fight to boost his presidential aspirations, as the course remains in limbo today.
Florida as of Tuesday accepted 66 of 101 social studies books submitted by publishers for use in the state, according to the Department of Education. Even with 35 books still pending approval, this marks a major jump from last month when the state initially rejected 81 books for various reasons.
The agency on Tuesday cited several examples of publishers modifying books after the state flagged them, such as an “inaccurate description of socialism” in one middle school book that claimed the political philosophy “keeps things nice and even and without necessary waste” and “may promote greater equality among people while still providing a fully functioning government-supervised economy.” The publisher stripped that language in a change to the textbook posted by the state.
The DeSantis administration also spurred one publisher to remove a section in a middle school textbook about “New Calls for Social Justice,” which mentioned the Black Lives Matter movement and Floyd police killing in 2020. This piece of text detailed that “while many American sympathized” with Black Lives Matters, “others charged that the movement was anti-police.”
Florida determined this content broached “unsolicited topics,” yet critics pan the state’s decision to reject it.

“Look at the revisions they are celebrating & ask yourself if you trust [Florida] to write our history,” the Florida Freedom to Read Project, an organization that monitors local book challenges, wrote in a tweet.
DeSantis officials, meanwhile, credited the Florida Department of Education for pushing publishers to rethink their proposals to the state.
“The political indoctrination of children through the K-12 public education system is a very real and prolific problem in this country,” DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin wrote in a tweet Tuesday.

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#Florida #approves #K12 #social #studies #textbooks #pressing #publishers #tweak #content
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 10, 2023
Shortage of Textbooks Hits Uri Schools, Parents Aghast

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Zaffer Iqbal
Uri, May 6 (GNS): Most of the students enrolled across various schools in Uri in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district are suffering for the want of text-books for over a month now, which has expectedly affected the education scenario in the frontier town.
A delegation of parents told GNS that despite the fact that the classes have started well before a month, still most of the students have not been provided with the textbooks by the respective schools.
A parent, part of delegation, told his son is reading in class 5th but EVS, Mathematics and Kashmiri books have not been provided to him as of now.
Another parent with a somewhat similar claim said his ward, reading in Class 2, is yet to receive his Urdu book.
Expressing their resentment, the delegation said the lackadaisical approach by the schools in the area have reduced free education to merely a joke.
“If this remains the situation, how well will our wards learn?”, another delegation member said.
“We appeal Director School Education Kashmir to take necessary action and provide complete books to their children as soon as possible so that the education of their wards is not affected anymore”, they said.

When contacted, a School Education Department official admitted they have lack of availability of several books. “We have taken up the matter with higher-ups and hope that all the books required are made available at an earliest”, the official told GNS. (GNS)
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#Shortage #Textbooks #Hits #Uri #Schools #Parents #Aghast
( With inputs from : thegnskashmir.com )

May 6, 2023
School Education Department Likely To Issue Two Types Of Textbooks

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SRINAGAR: School Education Department is likely to issue two types of textbooks for school students from this academic year.
Director of School Education Kashmir (DSEK),Tassaduq Hussain Mir has said, “We will be issuing two types of textbooks for school students in terms of paper quality.”
Mir said, “One of the textbook which we provide free of cost to the students will have different type of paper quality while another type of textbooks which will be open to purchase from market will have different quality of paper.”
The director said that it has been decided in view of ‘financial constrains’.
“Most likely, this matter will be implemented from this academic year,” he said.
Mir further said, “This matter has been taken up with the principal secretary, School Education Department and he has given a positive response to it.” (KNO)

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#School #Education #Department #Issue #Types #Textbooks

( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

April 8, 2023
School Edu Deptt likely to issue two types of textbooks from this year

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Srinagar, Apr 08: School Education Department is likely to issue two types of textbooks for school students from this academic year.
According to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Director of School Education Kashmir (DSEK), Tassaduq Hussain Mir has said, “We will be issuing two types of textbooks for school students in terms of paper quality.”
Mir said, “One of the textbook which we provide free of cost to the students will have different type of paper quality while another type of textbooks which will be open to purchase from market will have different quality of paper.”
The director said that it has been decided in view of ‘financial constrains’.
“Most likely, this matter will be implemented from this academic year,” he said.
Mir further said, “This matter has been taken up with the principal secretary, School Education Department and he has given a positive response to it.”
The director said that the decision has been made in order to complete the government with pivate institutions—(KNO)

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#School #Deptt #issue #types #textbooks #year
( With inputs from : roshankashmir.net )

April 8, 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
Textbooks not revised to please or offend anyone: NCERT chief

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New Delhi: The recent changes in textbooks have not been made to please or offend anyone, rather these are purely based on the recommendations made by experts, said NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani.
In a detailed conversation with IANS, Saklani said that the NCERT is now going to introduce new books for all classes on the basis of National Education Policy (NEP).
According to the NCERT chief, changes have not only been made in history books, but in all other subjects as well to reduce burden from students.

Excerpts from the interview:
IANS: Is it true that the NCERT is bringing new school textbooks?
Saklani: It is true that the NCERT is preparing new textbooks for all classes. The new curriculum will be based on the NEP. The curriculum for the foundation level has been designed and new textbooks will be made available within next two months, while the revision in curriculum of higher classes is still going on and the new textbooks may be finalised in a year.
IANS: Why are these revisions being made in NCERT textbooks?
Saklani: Firstly, there are no big changes. Secondly, all these revisions were made last year. Everyone has seen what the situation was then due to the coronavirus. Students suffered a huge loss of learning. Not just the school level students, but also the students studying in higher education institutions across the country and the world, have suffered loss of learning due to the closure of schools, colleges and universities. In such a situation, NCERT decided to do some revisions in curriculum on the basis of suggestions provided by experts so that the burden of studies on the students, who come to school after a long time, can be reduced.

IANS: What would be the benefit for students of reducing chapters and facts from textbooks?
Saklani: It has directly benefited the students. We had reduced the syllabus in 2022 itself and it reduced the burden of studies from students who came to school after a long time. They had to study lesser materials for their exams. Even the examination-related stress on students, who were already suffering from the stress of Corona, was also diminished.
IANS: A few people have alleged that the curriculum change is part of the strategy to completely exclude the Mughals from the textbooks. What’s your take?
Saklani: I want to make it clear that the NCERT has not taken this step at the behest of anyone. The decision to reduce the syllabus was not taken please or offend anyone. We have taken this step to provide immediate relief to students. The changes are based on the opinion of educationists and experts from across the country. The allegations that all the chapters on Mughals have been removed from textbooks are completely baseless, it is not so.
IANS: On what basis did the NCERT decide to remove chapters from textbooks?
Salanki: For this, we formed a committee of education experts from across the country. These experts, to reduce the burden of students, made an in-depth study of every subject and book from Class 6 to 12, and then recommended removal of such chapters and facts from the syllabus which were repeated. The experts whose advice were taken included university level educationists, experts associated with schools and experts from NCERT itself.
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#Textbooks #revised #offend #NCERT #chief
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 5, 2023
‘Negative content’ needs to be removed from history textbooks: Maha BJP chief

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Mumbai: Amid a row over the removal of certain references in NCERT’s new class 12 textbooks, BJP’s Maharashtra chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Wednesday said some people had deliberately written “negative content” in history textbooks and there was a need to drop it.
He also said that although he was against some “negative descriptions” in textbooks, facts need not be removed from them.
“Gandhiji’s death had 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 missing from the class 12 political science textbook for the new academic session.

A political row has erupted over it with the Congress accusing the government of distorting history and “whitewashing with a vengeance”. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), however, claimed that no curriculum trimming has taken place this year and the syllabus was rationalised in June last year.
Answering a query on the issue during a press conference, Bawankule said, “Some people have deliberately written negative content in our history books. It needs to be removed.”
“Our country is marching ahead, progressing and going to be the greatest country in the world. There is no need for negative content,” he said.
After the press conference, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was asked about his remarks on the issue, he said he was making a general statement over it and not referring to any specific issue.
Replying to a question about why historical facts were being removed from textbooks, he said, “I am talking in general and not particularly about the omission of some chapters or issues. Facts need not be removed from history. My objection is about some negative descriptions.”

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#Negative #content #removed #history #textbooks #Maha #BJP #chief
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 5, 2023
Whitewashing with a vengeance: Cong on over deletions from NCERT textbooks

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New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday hit out at the government over some texts missing from NCERT’s new class 12 textbooks, including Mahatma Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity irking the right-wing and the ban on the RSS for some time, and called it “whitewashing with a vengeance”.
The NCERT, however, claims that no curriculum trimming has happened this year and the syllabus was rationalised last year in June.
“Gandhiji’s death had a magical effect on communal situation in the country”, “Gandhiji’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists”, “organisations like RSS were banned for some time”, “communal politics began to lose its appeal”–these are among the texts missing from class 12 political science textbooks for the new academic session.

Tagging a media report on it, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Twitter, “Whitewashing with a vengeance.”
Tagging another report which claimed that chapters related to the Mughals and Dalit writers have also been axed from the textbooks, he said, “This reveals the ruling regime’s TRUE mindset. After all, the RSS had not only attacked Gandhi but had been bitterly opposed to Dr Ambedkar as well.”
This reveals the ruling regime’s TRUE mindset. After all the RSS had not only attacked Gandhi but had been bitterly opposed to Dr. Ambedkar as well. https://t.co/chFlkiqSDO
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 5, 2023
Union minister Shobha Karandlaje defended the decision to remove certain references from the textbooks and said the Congress was the biggest manipulator of India’s historical facts and the BJP was only correcting the wrongdoings of the past.
“Facts that threatened @INCIndia and never made it to textbooks were — Barbarism of Mughals, Era of Emergency, Genocide of Kashmir Pandits and Sikhs, Corruption of Congress. BJP is only correcting your wrongdoings,” she said.
Asked about the deletions from the textbooks, an NCERT official said, “Subject expert panel had recommended dropping texts on Gandhi. It was accepted last year only. It was not mentioned in the list of rationalised content due to oversight. Any missing contents in the list will be notified in a day or two.”

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#Whitewashing #vengeance #Cong #deletions #NCERT #textbooks
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 5, 2023
Mughals Move Out Of NCERT Textbooks

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SRINAGAR: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has announced significant revisions to the 12th class History book, with the removal of chapters related to the Mughal Empire. The changes will be applicable to all NCERT-affiliated schools across the country, and are expected to impact the way students learn about Indian history. The altered syllabus will no longer include chapters on ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (C. 16th and 17th centuries)’ from the ‘Themes of Indian History-Part 2’ textbook for Class 12.
Additionally, the NCERT will also remove certain poems and paragraphs from Hindi textbooks. These changes have sparked a debate among educators and students alike, with many questioning the motives behind the revisions and their impact on the curriculum. Some argue that the move is an attempt to rewrite history, while others believe it is a necessary step to provide a more accurate representation of India’s past.
NCERT has announced that the changes made in the History and Hindi textbooks, as well as the 12th class Civics book, will come into effect from the ongoing academic session of 2023-2024. The revised Civics book will no longer include two chapters: ‘American Hegemony in World Politics’ and ‘The Cold War Era’.
The revisions to the NCERT textbooks have not been limited to Class 12th only. As part of the changes, two chapters, namely ‘Rise of Popular Movements’ and ‘Era of One Party Dominance’ have been removed from the Class 12th textbook ‘Indian Politics after Independence’.
Additionally, certain chapters from Class 10th and 11th textbooks have also been removed. For instance, in Class 10th book ‘Democratic Politics-2’, chapters on ‘Democracy and Diversity’, ‘Popular Struggles and Movements’, and ‘Challenges of Democracy’ have been removed. These changes will be implemented from the current academic session, i.e. 2023-2024.
The Class 11th textbook ‘Themes in World History’ will no longer include chapters on ‘Central Islamic Lands’, ‘Clash of Cultures’, and ‘Industrial Revolution’, as these have been removed from the curriculum. The authorities have confirmed that the revised syllabus and textbooks will be implemented in various schools from this year.

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#Mughals #Move #NCERT #Textbooks

( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

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