Citing “irrational cuts” and large-scale deletions by the National Council of Education Research and Training in school textbooks, two senior advisors to political science textbooks published in 2006-07 have written to the Council asking it to drop their names. In a letter to the NCERT, advisors Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra Yadav said that the six NCERT textbooks that they put together have now been “mutilated beyond recognition”.
The letter comes in the backdrop of the sweeping changes brought to the textbooks by the Council in a bid to reduce the curriculum to help students recover from learning disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes, that have come under much scrutiny from academicians and politicians alike, include removing all references to the 2002 Gujarat riots, reducing content related to the Mughal era and the caste system, and dropping chapters on protests and social movements.
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“Professor Suhas Palshikar and I have dissociated ourselves from the six NCERT textbooks that we had the honour to put together but that have now been mutilated beyond recognition. We have asked NCERT to remove our names from these books,” Yadav said informing about the decision on Twitter.
“We fail to see any pedagogic rationale at work… We find that the text has been mutilated beyond recognition… We were never consulted or even informed of these changes,” the letter, shared by Yadav on his Twitter handle, states.
“Text books cannot and should not be shaped in this blatantly partisan manner and should not quell the spirit of critique and questioning among students of social sciences. These textbooks, as they stand now, do not serve the purpose of training students of political science both the principles of politics and the broad patterns of political dynamics that have occurred over time,” the letter states.
As criticism over the changes grew, the NCERT defended the changes in a series of tweets, stating that the rationalisation of textbooks was a “need-based exercise aimed at reducing the content load, keeping in view students’ mental health” during the pandemic.
The Council further clarified that the rationalised content is applicable only for the academic year 2023-24, as a new set of textbooks will be developed based on the upcoming National Curriculum Framework.
“… we feel embarrassed that our names should be mentioned as Chief Advisors to these mutilated and academically dysfunctional textbooks… Both of us would like to dissociate ourselves from these textbooks and request the NCERT to drop our names as ‘chief advisors’ from all Political Science Textbooks of classes IX, X, XI and XII,” Yadav and Plashikar said in their letter to the NCERT.