Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday, August 23, said that “regressive” changes made to the school curriculum by the Union government would adversely impact an entire generation of children. He said that these changes would lead to the children growing up in an environment of hatred, which could in turn lead to communal riots. CM Pinarayi was speaking at an event in Thiruvananthapuram, where additional textbooks were released for higher secondary students by the Kerala SCERT, reincorporating passages removed by the National Council For Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
He further said that the claims of NCERT that some portions were removed as part of rationalisation and to reduce the weight of books were unacceptable. He said that rather, it was part of a larger political agenda, aimed at destroying the secularist ethos and scientific temper enshrined in the Constitution, Times of India reported. “Soon, they will undoubtedly portray [Nathuram] Godse (Gandhi’s assassin) as a great personality,” he scoffed.
Pointing out that some of the deleted passages were related to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, he said that it was an attempt to cover up “certain organisations and ideologies connected to the assassination”. Also, the removal of passages related to the Mughal rule era was an attempt at “othering” a community, he said and insisted that unscientific, politically-coloured changes in the syllabus would distort the outlook of the students. “For education aimed at social progress, society, history and science need to be factually understood,” the CM added.
The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has brought out the new textbooks, which will be taught to the students studying under NCERT syllabus, General Education Minister V Sivankutty said and revealed that similar revised textbooks for classes 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 would be published in 2024, and for classes 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 in 2025.
Sivankutty had earlier said that Kerala's curriculum committee formed a sub-committee, which held comprehensive discussions and arrived at the conclusion that several portions that the NCERT had removed from textbooks were of significance, and there was no way students could remain ignorant of such momentous events. He also said that they would be a proper part of the syllabus and not just complementary readings. “Students will have to study them for their exams, because only then would they find the drive to read about it and understand their history,” the Minister said.
The NCERT, earlier this year, removed portions pertaining to evolution, the periodic table of elements, sources of energy, history and environmental sustainability from school textbooks. Further, portions about pollution, climate change, and energy sources have also been removed, with the claim that this is aimed at“lessening undue study overload”.