NCERT has reacted after facing criticism for “rationalisation” of textbooks which dropped the chapters on ‘Kings and Chronicles’ and ‘ The Mughal Courts’ from the CBSE history books for Class 12.
The top advisory body for Centre NCERT, according to the report in NDTV has said:"As we explained last year as well, there has been a lot of learning loss due to the Covid pandemic and the students underwent a lot of trauma. To help stressed students, and as a responsibility to society and the nation, it was felt that the content load in textbooks should be reduced”.
It has also said: “some parts were removed to minimise the content load on students, who faced a traumatic pandemic and were under a lot of stress”.
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The report quoting Director of NCERT Dinesh Prasad Saklani, said there are no new books, and that the revisions made last year, which the advisory body justified at length last year, will continue this academic year as well.
"A process was adopted, which was totally professional," the report quoted Saklani as having said.
Saklani, report said, also rejected the allegations that the changes were made to suit a particular ideology.
Meanwhile, the move to omit the chapters in history books has been criticised by various politicians including CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury.
Yechury termed the move as “communal”.
"Communal rewriting of history intensifies. NCERT revises Class XII history book removing chapters on Mughal empire. The lands of India have always been the churning crucible of civilisational advances through cultural confluences," he tweeted.
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Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also said UP will produce its own version of history and biology.
Many of the controversial changes were announced in early 2022 when the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) rationalised its syllabi in April. Besides schools under CBSE, some state boards also use NCERT textbooks.
"The content of the textbooks has been rationalised for various reasons, including overlapping with similar content in other subject areas in the same class, similar content included in the lower or higher classes on the same subject,” NCERT said.
