On Thursday, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) provided an explanation for their choice to permanently omit some chapters from textbooks for Class 10.
They made this statement after the NCERT withdrew the periodic table from Class 10 textbooks and omitted the chapters “Democracy and Diversity,” “Challenges to democracy,” and “Popular struggles and movements” from the social science textbook “Democratic Politics,” Book 2.
The NCERT claimed on Twitter that the endeavour to reduce textbook content started during the pandemic for a number of reasons.
According to the government agency, content was dropped if it was duplicated in another subject area of the same class. High difficulty, easily available content that doesn’t require assistance, and outdated or irrelevant content were among the NCERT’s further justifications.
According to the NCERT, the periodic table and evolution ideas have not been taken out of the educational curriculum despite their removal from Class 10 textbooks.
“They are available in appropriate detail in classes 11 and 12,” it said in the Twitter thread. It said that students pursuing science in classes 11 and 12 will study the details of the Periodic Classification of elements.
“Discussion about basic concepts such as elements, symbols, formation of compounds, atoms and molecules have been dealt with in class 9. In class 10, chemical reactions; acids, bases & salts; metals & non-metals; carbon and its compounds have been covered.”
According to the NCERT, the expert committee responsible for the rationalisation of the syllabus determined that the three chapters removed from a social science textbook for Class 10 belonged more appropriately in the Sociology subject.
“It is to clarify that dropping portions relating to social movements from class X, Political Science textbook, Democratic Politics II and class XII Politics in India Since Independence, the expert committee in the process of rationalisation was of the view that these are more appropriate to be the part of Sociology subject. Chapter one of Class X, Democratic Politics- II already deals with some aspects of Social Movements.,” the NCERT said in another Twitter thread.
Along with the periodic table and chapters on democracy, the NCERT decided in April to take Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution out of science textbooks for classes 9 and 10.
Additionally, passages about Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India’s first minister of education, and the murder of Mahatma Gandhi were taken out of the class 11 political science textbooks. In NCERT textbooks, references to Mughal history have also been condensed at different levels.