There was no mention of the passages about Gandhi in the rationalization note.
New Delhi:
Amid controversy over deletion of some material related to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination from its textbooks without any notification, NCERT chief Dinesh Saklani on Wednesday said it could be an “oversight” that some deletions happened in its rationalization exercise last year. was not announced.
Reiterating all the necessary procedures during the rationalisation, in which several important chapters were cut, Mr Saklani said it “should not be blown out of proportion” and all the changes made in the new textbooks should be done in one or Will be notified in two days. ,
His comments came after the new NCERT textbooks came out in the market and it was found that more content is missing than what was notified in the syllabus rationalization manual last year.
“Gandhiji’s death had a magical effect on the communal situation in the country”, “Gandhi’s quest for Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists” and “Organisations like the RSS were banned for some time” Class 12 Politics are among the lessons missing from the science textbooks. new academic session.
Saklani told PTI, the subject expert panel had recommended deletion of some texts on Gandhi. It was accepted only last year. It may not have been mentioned in the list of rational ingredients.
“Nothing can be left overnight, there are proper procedures and professional ethics have to be followed. There is nothing intentional behind this,” he added.
Saklani claimed that there has been no syllabus trimming this year and the syllabus was rationalized in June last year.
When asked whether there are more such materials for other subjects and classes which have been dropped and were not announced during the rationalisation, the NCERT chief said, “We are looking into it”.
“If we find more material that was missed due to the mistake, we will inform them soon…mostly within a day or two,” he added.
Last year, as part of its “syllabus rationalisation” exercise, the NCERT removed certain sections from the syllabus citing “overlapping” and “irrelevant” reasons, including Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement But the lessons were included. Other than its textbooks.
There was no mention of the passages about Gandhi in the rationalization note.
The Congress hit out at the government over the issue and called it a “cover-up with a vengeance”.
A note on the NCERT website reads, “In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was felt imperative to reduce the material burden on students. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 also seeks to reduce the material load and promote experiential learning.” It lays emphasis on providing opportunities to students with a creative mindset. In this background, the NCERT undertook the exercise of rationalizing textbooks for all classes and all subjects.” “The present edition is a reformed edition after making changes. The present textbooks are rationalized textbooks. These were rationalized for the session 2022-23 and will continue in 2023-24.”
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