From India's largest Newsroom. I'm Warren Gorge. And this is the times of India podcast. The National Council for educational research and training has been in headlines since it emerged, that multiple permanent changes had been made in textbooks, that will be issued this year. The modifications in a history chapter about Mahatma Gandhi's, assassination, sparked outrage, after B, about assassin. Nathuram godse, and the rashtriya swayamsevak sangh RSS were cut out.
However, it's not just history, where the changes have been made. Reports have pointed out that reference has to the 2002 Gujarat riots, have vanished from the textbooks. One report says, topics. Like police atrocities and air pollution have also been erased from a textbook, the director of the ncert Denisa clanny meant in that. All the cuts made in the textbooks were done, only to reduce the burden on students, it is not change in curriculum or syllabus.
It was changed in books, only in order to reduce the content. Politicians from various opposition parties have largely focused on the changes in the history textbooks that they say a politically biased. However, a group of 200 experts, which includes historians issued, a statement criticizing the changes that have been made in all the textbooks, one of the signatories to the letter is Professor, Anita rampal.
She was the dean of the faculty of Education, Delhi, University, and had worked on the creation of school textbooks. In today's episode, we're talking with Professor ample about the impact of the these changes. She also explains how the textbook changes proposed changes in schools curriculums and other factors are changing public education in India. Mr. Humble to start with. Could you talk about these ncert textbooks?
How much do they influence? Education in India and would say States like say a Kerala which has objected to changes in history textbooks, would they be able to change their textbooks in order to sort of bypass changes that are made in ncert textbooks? Yes, you are still an important question because Kerala right now is debating on these issues and I happen to be on a core committee there on on the
curriculum revision. So many states use the higher secondary 11th 12th, textbooks from ncert. Even the other textbooks, ncert gives them a camera-ready copy and states can have an mou and include some chapters on their own and use what PN C RT is made. So you know for many years this has been Been happening. But yes, 11:12 is an issue because you can't suddenly produce these books now. So you know, they were they obviously don't want to use the deleted versions.
And so now, they will have to, they have said, I think the minister is given the statement that they be using the earlier version, the unedited version as they were. So, how would that work? Because if ncert stops a publishing, those old textbooks, you know, wouldn't it in effect be really Difficult to then continue would then say states have to bring out their own versions of text books based on ncert textbooks, if they want to keep that going States. Again, have that freedom to do that.
The constitution allows in fact, a tell states that they make their own curriculum and they choose whether they want to use these in Toto or they want to use them and add some component of their own, you know, which they've been doing even in the other ninth tenth or other classes. So that is up to To the states. Obviously, you can't produce 11th, 12th textbooks with the kind with, with a group and with the expertise suddenly within six months.
So, obviously States will have to take this decision. Those that don't want, the edited version will have to see how they can legally work on on using the earlier version without having to produce completely new ones, what will be the understanding and what they communicate to ncert. But Professor, Anita, a points out that apart from the time that it takes for states to bring out new textbooks. There's another issue that they would need to deal with the
competitive exams. That students are required to write after class 12, and if the exams are based on the mat in the ncert textbooks, they can't be ignored. What worry States is even earlier that cbse books were becoming the kind of exit level text for school and the entry level takes for admission into various kinds of tests or even in the is exam or something like that.
Now, a very concerted lie, when the sea Wheatie, the common Entrance Test, or the need for these kinds of tests which the center is pushing. In terms of a ation of Entrance Test that is questionable because that they clearly saying is going to be based only on CBS t. Professor ample says that under existing guiding principles is no set period after which textbooks need to be revised.
There's also no real requirement for revisions but in 2020, when the pandemic hit schools were shot courses went online. That's when a process of rationalization was carried out in ncert textbooks under this process, certain portions of the textbook would be cut out of the syllabus so that students didn't have to study it for exams. Professor a is that even when cutting things out of a syllabus, it needs to be done
carefully. She says, the latest revisions are an extension of a process that started during the pandemic. Normally there are no revisions which are done in this way, unless there is something like they did the covid revision so-called covid because they use the covid to again, delete the same kind of things, and people had raised this question. But that was, again, it was a list given out. It was kind of booklets given out and the books remain the same as they were.
But now they have deleted that in the book so that they made that into a permanent thing within covid. In any case, many, These are disrupted and I remember the first time that the media had asked me, I said you don't do even a revision for an emergency like covid. You don't do this way. There is a certain sequence. You have to understand because each concept each theme. Each topic Falls within a pattern of progression of how
ideas are going to be developed. How students understand this is not a disciplinary exercise that as a discipline. I think this comes after this, you know, there is no chronology. Only coming from the And it has to follow the sequence and the pattern and the depth and complexity and the abstract nest of a certain concept and how one Builds on the other or how students, at what age with what
connections in their lives. Do they actually understand these so that is how technically it should be done. You can't pick up something threw it out, we have been following in the sense critiquing writing about ncert. That's our work. That's my work. I've been working with text Books in different states. That's something we do when I teach this, I also teach curriculum studies but the way this was done. Well it's completely devoid of any such consideration or any
such discussion. So then with the latest changes in the ncert takes history textbooks, particularly you are among a group of over 200 experts who've signed on a letter, objecting to the changes and deletions made in the upcoming editions. Could you explain the reason for this? Letter. The reason why is because this was being done just without any consultation. And many of the people who signed it including me, we are part of the syllabus committees
a textbook development teams. The advisors chairpersons. So, you know, we've been involved in this exercise and there's been absolutely no consultation or discussion. Plus it seems to be extremely motivated in a very deliberate selection is being made or what is being deleted. And that is why Being, that's extremely worrying. A contentious cut is the fact that the 2002 Gujarat riots, which took place. While Narendra Modi was chief. Minister are now alledgedly completely absent in all
textbooks. Professor ample explains, the logic of the inclusion of the riots that resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 people in textbooks for us. It was important because For the First Time, very sensitive, political issues, also dealing with the role of parties and way they were and socio-cultural Context in which say, a riot happens. Now, right? Is a very sensitive issue. How do you talk about? You need us. Don't give a year in. Dayton. See so many people died.
How do you build on the understanding of the tensions that happen. So this was done in one political science, textbook. Last well we're at the regional level, you're also looking at the Gujarat Riot and in another chapter, you're looking at the deli rides, the anti say crimes, both are there and very consciously done because And I think that, you know, they were the political science group also had just a kind of waiting meeting to get people to see
that even in the party. Some the I remember the education Minister I just seen this when the draft was ready and said nothing which was very important for the kind of academic confidence and freedom. That you feel. You have when you're designing curricula because it's the ruling party and you're talking everything you're talking about
what Justice anonymity is said. You're You about an apology that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, later gave, you're doing all that and that is what we thought was what is an honest way of dealing with something as dramatic as that and similarly with the right. Right. But this early purges any mention of the Gujarat, right? Not just this this chapter to pay whatever it is an earlier chapter Sociology Chapter in class 11. So there is no mention of a guitar, right?
But the entire Delhi anti-sikh riots is there as it is. So isn't this motivated? What more could be motivated? Like the whole discussion about gun. He is Assassin. This is come into media, what you write, why they were trying to write. And this is not, you know, this is a known fact of why Gandhi was being targeted. So what is the history of that? And to say that he is insistence on hindu-muslim Unity over something that was oh, King people so how can you just take?
That sentence and say not to run God, say kill him. Finished, is that you the way you write a textbook? In any case, as I'm saying, these are issues, which are traumatic, which are difficult. Uncomfortable. You have to trust young people to be able to speak openly in a transparent manner, so that they can then take up these issues. Because students come with their own socializations, they come with their own back background, what they hear.
And, uh, Other sources. So when they get something, it's not a dollop of information that is being thrown on them, they're being given to it. They're being given this exposure so that they can question it also through their frames of reference through their ways of how they have
looked at these things. So, giving one piece of information and taking out the entire resul, they are true for putting it there in the entire rational analysis, whatever possible he's again is terrible pedagogy but it's also extremely Tree me motivated because you're then distorting. You coming with a divisive mind of what is allowed and what is not allowed, what you think is palatable and what is not. And also then the entire effort that was made was to try and
present. A more composite Nation were more composite history in terms of how history has been. And to get people to understand that democracy is not just going in casting a vote. By the focus has been the history deletions another report flag. The fact that in other social science textbooks, you have things which seemingly innocuous like a water park in with
herbal, which is water. Starved, the effects of air pollution and issues that seemingly aren't even very objectively political maybe from why do you believe we seen these changes in areas that one would not even see as political one. I would like to say that education has to be looked at politically in the sense whenever you questioning power. It's not a party but you're questioning disadvantage.
You're questioning whose knowledge comes into a curriculum and whose doesn't like political science for instance, tries to give you an understanding in, which you go beyond these partisan issues and look deeply into the nature of polity and the nature of power. So, as we keep saying that, Just what comes in a syllabus and whose life it shows. And what does the textbook show you? Not just the names and the visuals but whose lives, you
know? So it tells you there many lives it does not show, or it does not represent or how they are represented. So these questions are not just in terms of colonial and Imperial and things like that. But this these questions run through even today in fact, this entire chapter on environmental degradation is out. So why are these Doubt. So anything that can question.
Government decisions are question, the role of the government or question, what is happening in terms of development, why are people in in the tribal districts? So agitated and worried about mining, for instance, or why are they protest movements that are happening there? So people's movements protest movements chipko? You know, these may be things which look non-political but they clearly political even if not Partisan immediately.
If you are looking at which party is involved to then certain parties are going to feel more discomfort in this because it relates to some of the other decisions they may be taking after all you're preparing students to question. I mean that is the whole nature in which your these particular books were clearly that and that's why we see the
difference. These were books not made by ncert, but a whole lot of people it was a whole, you know, ecosystem of people were Working in education across the country and that's why many of them, not all. But many of the books came out in a very fine way, in terms of the pedagogies that we think should be there that we teach
about. So, here was this pedagogy, which was not just throwing out information at you, or not just throwing out some questions at you and asking you to repeat the answers, but it was based on social constructivism. That's what we were supposed to work on. The basis of our approach was that any learner is constructing knowledge and the knowledge is being constructed. As a social process not alone. I is a learner, don't construct my knowledge alone. I constructed through a process
of doubting speaking. Not understanding aligning with people talking, and that is what a classroom is supposed to be. But with this subject of rationalization, I just want to stay with that, you know, like you said in covid there. There was some logic that. Okay, we cut this chapter out or good doesn't appear in the exam or go to the sort of load on students has less. How do we know if we're
overburdening students? Is there a sort of rationalization that, you know, sort of has been pending? You believe? It should have been done during the covid and immediately after the covid, we should have been ready, state twice as to how we going to restructure a given current Suppose we find that children in Primary School have lost out completely on two years which they have and that's a crucial stage. When you're learning some things, then you have you have time up to classified.
So within a given syllabus, you have time for that segment of the syllabus of how you restructure it. But it needs that thought it needs that thinking what is it that can be given up and in what way, and then, what are the other Links of the Actions between these Concepts. How will they be made? So, you know, all that is to be done. Very carefully and your teachers have to be oriented accordingly, you can do it in six months.
Like, now Bridge course, is notionally as a formality for three weeks, six weeks to months that doesn't help. So what I'm saying is that restructuring we had been asking for called for during the covid but we need that long-term vision of what kind of gaps there are.
That didn't happen. But and the symptom of one argument, any critic of the Indian education system has is that we perhaps have too much for children, which in turn encourages a certain form of learning, which in turn perhaps, negates any way what you're talking about, soup in that light then wouldn't sort of paring down of what or how much students have to study wooden. That anyway, kind of makes sense. That's correct. Regular development. It's not called rationalizing.
So whenever a curriculum is made, you have to keep asking these questions. Nothing is made for ever. We have done that in the past. We've done that in 2006 to 2008 when these books came out. But again with the same kind of a large consultation of scholarship that works there. You can't hear someone say. I don't like this. I'm taking this from a discussion that I had yesterday. When someone does it one thing that I did go.
That he translated the ramen. That's all the one thing that they find out what did good you really need scholarship, which goes beyond what is there in the text or in the syllabus? You mentioned the national curriculum framework? That is also submitting its reports as of now, it's made headlines for its changes and how it wants education to be done in school levels and multiple board exams possibly. You spoke a bit about how it's an real scenario that we face in
the education system right now. But where does this push sort of take it? According to you, I just look at how it's saying in terms of specially the class 9 in 10 and 11 and 12. It sounds very nice when we sing that we should have many options and we should be doing a very broader spectrum of things. It sounds good even today without looking at that, we have a challenge of how you make an integrated. How do you?
Integrate disciplines we can say that but it doesn't happen because you to see how ready are teachers have day been professionally developed in that sense, how ready are teacher Educators? But the other thing is that this remains on paper or it only sort of day, it's there for the elite schools. Because if you look at even Delhi, government schools, right? A very small board. I mean thousand schools, 1100 schools for Delhi government very small as compared to what
other states are. I have to look at and even here two-thirds of the government schools. Do not offer science. They only offering Commerce and social sciences. Why is it? So and this state, which Goes to Town saying that it's done in Education Revolution, which is really a very unpleasant thing to be hearing any government say on the basis of what it actually does and it actually throws out students into the open school so that their marks don't show up in the CBS C exams.
This is one of the states where all government schools and all poor children and all their marks will come up in the cbse. Not all states. Have it there, they stayed ones, you see. So that's the difference. So this state, if it wants to show only good marks, it has to throw out children into the open school. It does that. And not just that, it's not offering science why we know the reasons. We know that they may not be science.
Teachers, who can teach at that level that maths teachers are not. There we are. I also know, there are no Labs, there are no facilities till class tend to get away by doing no experiments, only doing something for the final exam. So I'm saying, within the system is a rationale of its own of who gets what the choice rhetoric is only there on paper and it's only there for some very elite school because private schools are also low cost private schools which I have worse than government.
Schools are teachers are not trained, they don't have qualified teachers so it's a small subset. Of our entire system which might make use of these so-called choices or these options. So this sorting will allow you to push out. A lot of people and not demand, more not want to come into the more specialized courses which we know are not going to be really open to people from disadvantaged classes or homes with unsupported families or backgrounds and things like that.
Among the changes suggested in the school. Curriculum is the introduction of mobile occasionally courses, at the school Level under the new curriculum rules being proposed. Students would be able to opt to focus on vocational courses instead of the traditional ones. Professor a is that this would work against many students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
What is called location is troublesome in our context one because vocation in our country, still is tied to cast and it is tied to Advantage and social status and Social Capital. You know, where who goes into? What kind of a cost. I have been saying specifically that we should have work based education for everyone. Why should some people be pushed into a so-called less academic stream called vocational? You should have work based education for anyone.
Anyone, you could have be doing a science course and you do a web-based course you do something else. You could be doing a work, based course not segregation the segregation. And differentiation is what then actually harms students and the kinds of opportunities that they might get to go further. We have to be conscious about these things not just as rhetoric, which might sound nice, but through the ground realities and how constantly the
ground realities play out there. Logic and play out their own rational within the system. There's nothing called choice. But how do you see all these changes? Then you know the Fallout of all of this lets out a centralization of exams. This sort of mainstream attempt to make sure that people don't look Beyond a certain thing that
they stick to the textbook. The Textbook itself, limits your vision and you look you all sort of have a blinkered view of what your world is in a sense, how does all of this come together? We're risking our kind of precarious higher education, which sort of serves for the precariat as it is like the gig economy serves the prokaryotes you know you you do what you do. You're not you don't know. You're not employed etc. Etc. The pirate education.
Also this for your course can serve that purpose. You leave after every year and you get a diploma. What is the value of that diploma? But you have something in your hand, this way, you Have something in your hand saying, I've done one Euro, you paid for something. It was shocking that someone just made this comment. Delhi, LG made the comment that degrees are just the receipts of the expenses that you paid for a
course. He said that because when up went into this show your degree campaign and things like that. He said, what is this degrees? I just the receipt. So this is the way if degrees are meant to be just that, then we are dismantling. In fact, what we have achieved in public education and the higher level, which is what we need to really have expanded in a more higher quality, more inclusiveness more opportunities, which we haven't
done. And now we are dismantling even what we have done and then leaving it to all those who can pay to get whatever they want, or the others to do get all their credits from some teaching shop, or some online because that's what the universe. Is alone. They've spent time giving us a list of content creators who are not academics their companies, so you can go and get your credits from anywhere. So you can just shop around. We don't have enough universities, public university
is being supported state. Universities are literally, you know, falling apart. And you're not taking that seriously. We are talking of other things circumventing that, it's just going to be the tire. Education is for those or even good quality. Education is for those who can pay for it. Today's episode was produced by Jay Raj Singh, soon-im arathi.
And on adjusting for a daily Spotlight on, people ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us, we're available on t.i. plus Spotify, Apple Google podcast and all other platforms of your choice. For any new steps email us at DIY podcast at times, internet dot in Today's episode was produced by Jay Raj Singh, soon-im arathi.
And on adjusting for a daily Spotlight on, people ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us, we're available on t.i. plus Spotify, Apple Google podcast and all other platforms of your choice. For any new steps email us at DIY podcast at times, internet dot in