NCERT textbook row: Over 70 academicians release statement; call it false propaganda
In a statement, issued by the 73 academicians, alleged their counterparts who wanted their names to be dropped from the textbooks were trying to capture media attention, and seem to have forgotten that textbooks are an outcome of collective intellectual engagement and rigorous efforts.
Follow73 academics, including vice chancellors of major institutions, published a declaration in the midst of the controversy over the substantial alteration of the original curriculum National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks, claiming that "false propaganda is being spread against the council."
The academics said that attempts are being made to derail the process of implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 for political agenda.
The statement comes days after 33 academicians, who were members of the textbook development committee for books drafted in 2006-07 based on the 2005 version of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) and are currently in use, wrote to the council stating that the recent syllabus rationalisation exercise has jeopardised their creative collective effort, and asked the council to remove their names from the current textbooks.
This was followed by two former NCERT advisors, Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, dissociating themselves from the ‘rationalised’ political science textbooks.
In a statement, issued by the 73 academicians, alleged their counterparts who wanted their names to be dropped from the textbooks were trying to capture media attention, and seem to have forgotten that textbooks are an outcome of collective intellectual engagement and rigorous efforts.
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Stating that the school curriculum in India has not been updated for nearly for two decades, they said, "The last update of textbooks was undertaken in 2006. The current NCERT team has been making consistent efforts for reducing the burden on students and improving learning outcomes by rationalising the syllabus and making the content relevant according to current needs."
"The scholars who have suggested the changes in the textbook have not suggested any epistemic rupture in the existing domain of knowledge but just rationalised the course content as per contemporary knowledge need," the statement read.
"As regards the decision of who decides what is unacceptable and what is desirable it is argued that every new generation has the right to make additions/deletions to the existing knowledge base," it added.
