Parts of NCERT textbooks, particularly those dealing with history, have been “criticised” because they offer “opinions or arguments” and are “not entirely based on facts”, Anita Karwal, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, is learnt to have said during a national consultation on curriculum revision held Monday.
Karwal, former CBSE chairperson and the most senior government official heading school education, said the country’s education system currently does not equip a child with skills to distinguish between a claim, a fact, an opinion or an argument, aspects which are covered under the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in which India also participates.
“When we are talking about science learning, for example, this is an area where we really need to focus upon, that is the critical thinking area. Whether it is science, whether it is language. In language also, people have been criticising some NCERT texts for certain things that have been written there. And those are actually only opinions or arguments, they are not facts, and that is why they have been criticised. In particular, our history textbooks have been criticised for this. Our history textbooks are not based entirely on facts. They are based on opinions, they are based on arguments. A child should be able to distinguish between all this and come to a conclusion before releasing the internal conflict in society, this is something we all need to be very careful about,” Karwal is learnt to have said.
The remarks were made during a day-long interaction of 25 groups of experts with the National Steering Committee revising the National Curriculum Framework (NCF). The groups, which represent areas ranging from Knowledge of India to Mathematics Education, have been tasked with preparing position papers, which will inform changes in the curriculum and textbooks, by May 15.
Officials told The Indian Express Reporter that Prof (retired) C I Issac, chairperson of the focus group on social sciences, said that history currently taught in schools is “subjective, not objective”. He said the starting point should be reversing the order in which the first Article of the Constitution describes the country’s name.
The first Article of the Constitution states that “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”.
“In the tender minds, we must teach them first Bharat, then India. Instead of India alias Bharat as in the Constitution. Social science teaching to tender minds must be creative and positive. Nowadays, our history in school syllabus is subjective, not objective. The Indian defeat, Hindu defeat is the main theme of school syllabus. You can hear about Muhammad Ghori, the victories… we may say Alexander the Great, who made him great? Alexander is great to Greek people, is it to India or Bharatiya people? So these problems we have discussed (in meetings of the focus group on social science),” he said.
(Source: The Indian Express)
