New Delhi (India), April 14, 2023: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has stirred up controversy by consulting 25 external experts to carry out its syllabus rationalization exercise.
As part of the exercise, portions on the Mughals, Mahatma Gandhi, his assassin Nathuram Godse, references to Hindu extremists, and the 2002 Gujarat riots were spiked from school textbooks. However, the deletions have been contested by opposition parties and prominent scholars.
The NCERT consulted two to five external experts for each of its seven subject departments, with one round of consultation each, according to a written response to a Lok Sabha question. The most contested deletions were from history and political science textbooks, for which the NCERT consulted five and two external experts, respectively.
The deletions include content that is “overlapping, not relevant or outdated in the present context, difficult, or easily accessible to children and can be learned through self-learning or peer-learning,” according to the NCERT.
The NCERT also held a consultation meeting with 16 teachers nominated by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to discuss the rationalization exercise done in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic across the subject areas, the ministry added.
However, the factors cited by the NCERT behind the deletions have been criticized, with many calling for greater transparency and the involvement of social scientists associated with the NCERT in the rationalization exercise.
