NEW DELHI, Apr 4: After the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) decision to drop chapters on Mughal history sparked controversy, the education body’s chief on Tuesday claimed it to be a “professional exercise meant to help students hit by the pandemic and has no ulterior political motive.”
Facing criticism for the “rationalisation” of school textbooks which dropped the chapters on ‘Kings and Chronicles’ and the ‘The Mughal Courts’ from the CBSE medieval History textbooks for Class 12, NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said the chapters on Mughals have not been dropped. “It’s a lie. (Chapters on) Mughals have not been dropped. There was a rationalisation process last year because due to COVID, there was pressure on students everywhere”, he said.
The NCERT Director strongly rejected the allegations that the changes were made to suit a particular ideology. Saklani called the allegation “totally fake and baseless.” “It’s a totally fake and baseless argument that textbooks are being rewritten to suit one particular ideology. There’s no logic to bringing this debate up now as the NCERT last year, for three months, gave a very detailed explanation of the process and the removed content. There’s no bias. It’s an assumption of certain people, I don’t know why,” he said.
“As we explained last year as well, there has been a lot of learning loss due to the Covid pandemic and the students underwent a lot of trauma. To help stressed students, and as a responsibility to society and the nation, it was felt that the content load in textbooks should be reduced,” Saklani said.
Stressing that experts felt some chapters were over-lapping across subjects and classes, he said some parts were removed to minimise the content load on students, who he said faced a traumatic pandemic and were under a lot of stress. Saklani said there were no new books, and that the revisions made last year, which the advisory body justified at length last year, would continue this academic year as well. “A process was adopted, which was totally professional,” he said.
Calling the debate unnecessary, the NCERT director said the expert committee recommended that if the chapter was dropped, it will not affect the knowledge of the children and an ‘unnecessary burden’ can be removed. “The debate is unnecessary. Those who don’t know, can check the textbooks…” Saklani added.
It was reported earlier that the NCERT has removed chapters and topics related to ‘Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal courts’ from history book ‘Themes of Indian History-Part II’ under its new rationalised syllabus to be taught in Class 12 from the academic session 2023-24.
CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury was among those who criticised the move, calling it communal. “Communal rewriting of history intensifies. NCERT revises Class XII history book removing chapters on Mughal empire. The lands of India have always been the churning crucible of civilisational advances through cultural confluences,” he tweeted.
In a jibe at UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi quipped that UP will produce its own version of history and biology. “Chapters on Mughal history dropped, Industrial Revolution of 18&19 century, Cold War era& intriguingly reproduction of organisms dropped from 10-12th textbooks in UP secondary education board.
UP will produce its own version of history&biology; the subject will be called bigotry,” she quipped.
Many of the controversial 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.
“We are working as per NEP (National Education Policy) 2020. This is a transition phase. NEP 2020 speaks of reducing the content load. We are implementing it. NCF (National Curriculum Framework) for school education is being formed, it will be finalised soon. Textbooks will be printed in 2024 as per NEP. We have not dropped anything right now”, the NCERT boss added further.
Even the government schools under the Uttar Pradesh state board will adopt the new NCERT class 12 history textbooks from this academic session. “We teach our students using NCERT books…whatever is there in the revised edition will be followed,” Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak said. The Additional Chief Secretary (basic and secondary education) Deepak Kumar said, “We follow NCERT books and whatever is available in the revised edition, we will follow it in state schools from 2023-24 session.”
(Manas Dasgupta)
