The State will likely teach portions on the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Mughal period that had been dropped from Class 12 textbooks by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The NCERT had conducted a syllabus rationalisation exercise for Classes 6 to 12 in the wake of COVID-19 and in tune with the National Education Policy.
However, unlike Classes 6 to 10 for which the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) brings out its own textbooks, in Classes 11 and 12, NCERT textbooks are taught for subjects such as History, Political Science, Economics, Geography, the Science subjects, and so on.
The NCERT had drawn flak for removing textbook content citing overlapping with similar content, irrelevant portions, or that could be learned by self-learning or peer-learning.
In the wake of this, the SCERT here had embarked on an exercise to determine if the portions dropped by the NCERT should be taught in the State.
In the Class 12 Political Science textbook, pages on the topic ‘Gujarat Riots’ were excluded from a chapter titled ‘Recent developments in Indian politics’. The mention of the National Human Rights Commission report on the violence in Gujarat had been dropped as also a ‘raj dharma’ remark by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The removed portion had photographs of newspaper reports on the violence too.
However, the SCERT has recommended to the General Education Department that this portion be retained for students here.
Similarly, in the Class 12 history textbook, a full chapter on Mughal courts ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts’ had been axed by the NCERT. The SCERT has recommended that some portions of the chapter be taught to Class 12 students here.
The NCERT had removed content for science subjects too. However, the SCERT has recommended that these portions not be taught since national medical and engineering entrance examinations such as NEET and JEE are based on the NCERT syllabus and any cut in NCERT textbook content will not affect students preparing for the examinations here.
In other subjects too, the SCERT has recommended that while some portions cut by the NCERT be retained, in other cases, the reduced content be adhered to for students here.
The SCERT recommendations will be discussed by the respective subject subcommittees and their decisions will then need to be ratified by the curriculum steering committee before the changes are adopted.
It is expected that a final decision for Plus One textbooks will be made before their classes get under way on August 25.
