June 16, More than 105 academicians, including vice chancellors and IIM chairpersons, supported NCERT’s move to rationalise textbooks and said the “spectacle” by some “arrogant and self-interested” people seeking withdrawal of their names from textbooks is disrupting the curriculum updation process.
University Grants Commission (UGC) chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar echoed their sentiments saying there is no merit in the “hue and cry” by certain academicians, and asserted that carrying out revision of content is justified.
A day ago, a group of academicians, who were part of the textbook development committees of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), wrote to the council demanding their names be dropped from books as their “collective effort is in jeopardy”.
A few days earlier, political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar had asked the NCERT to drop their names from textbooks over “several substantive revisions of the original texts”.
The joint statement issued by 106 academicians on Thursday night alleged that there have been deliberate attempts to malign the NCERT in the last three months and this reflects the “intellectual arrogance of academicians who want students to study 17-year-old textbooks”.
The signatories to the statement include the vice-chancellors of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Tezpur University, Mahatma Gandhi Central University, The English and Foreign Languages University, Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi University, Bangalore University, Behrampur University, Central University of Gujarat, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, the NIT Jalandhar director, the chairman of the Board of Governors of IIM Kashipur, the ICSSR secretary and the NIOS chairman.
“In the past three months, there have been deliberate attempts to malign the NCERT, a leading public institution, and disrupt the much-needed process for curriculum updation. Academicians trying to capture media attention through this name-withdrawal spectacle seem to have forgotten that textbooks are an outcome of collective intellectual engagement and rigorous efforts,” the statement said.
They said that the scholars who have suggested the changes in the textbooks have not suggested any “epistemic rupture” in the existing domain of knowledge, but just rationalised the course content as per contemporary knowledge need.
“As regards the decision of who decides what is unacceptable and what is desirable it is argued that every new generation has the right to make additions and deletions to the existing knowledge base,” it added.
The NCERT has said the withdrawal of anyone’s association is out of question as textbooks at the school level are developed on the basis of knowledge and understanding on a given subject and at no stage, individual authorship is claimed.
In their joint statement, the academicians said, “Through misinformation, rumours and false allegations, they want to derail the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) and disrupt the updation of NCERT textbooks. Their demand that students continue to study from 17-year-old textbooks rather than updated textbooks in sync with contemporary developments and pedagogical advancement reveals intellectual arrogance.”
“In their quest to further their political agenda, they are ready to endanger the future of crores of children across the country. While students are eagerly awaiting updated textbooks, these academicians are continuing to create hurdles and derail the entire process,” it said.
The dropping of several topics and portions from NCERT textbooks last month triggered a controversy, with the opposition blaming the BJP-led Centre of “whitewashing with vengeance”.
At the heart of the controversy was the fact that while the changes made as part of a rationalisation exercise were notified, some of the controversial deletions were not mentioned. This led to allegations about a bid to delete these portions surreptitiously.
UGC chief Kumar said, “In the recent past, the attacks by some ‘academicians’ on the NCERT for revising the textbooks are unwarranted. There is no merit in the hue and cry of these academicians. The objective behind their grumbling seems to be other than academic reasons.”
He said the NCERT is fully justified in carrying out rationalisation of its textbooks’ contents.
“The current textbook modifications are not the only ones carried out. The NCERT has been revising textbooks from time to time in the past too. The NCERT has repeatedly stated that the revision of textbooks originates from various stakeholders’ feedback and suggestions,” Kumar said.
JNU Vice Chancellor Santishree D Pandit also said the recent controversy on the NCERT textbook is totally unwarranted.
“The reason being that no book is contributed to a single author. It is very unfortunate that politicians are trying to make rationalisation a political issue. It is people who rationalise the syllabus, the revision of the syllabus is a must. The last time a revision was done was in 2006 and that cannot last forever. You have to keep changing according to new discoveries and knowledge, she remarked.
“It is very much in keeping the type of conspiracy and cancel culture saying that what they say should be the last word and nobody else have the right to have an opinion and a group of historians is right in everything,” she added.
Source: PTI
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