Kerala to release Class 11, 12 textbooks including chapters dropped by NCERT on August 23

NEW DELHI: Kerala government will release additional textbooks including the parts dropped by the National Council of Educational Training and Research (NCERT) on August 23, state general education minister V Sivankutty said. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the book distribution programme at Cotton Hill school, Thiruvananthapuram. Recently, the state government decided to include chapters removed by NCERT in Classes 11, 12 books.

The Kerala education department explained that NCERT removed essential topics from the constitution, India’s history, fundamental rights, etc. from the humanities subject and that is why the government is printing additional humanities textbooks.

Also Read | NCERT’s new NCF panel has Sudha Murthy, Bibek Debroy, Shankar Mahadevan

On revision of the school syllabus from Classes 6 to 12, the education department argued that the state government had opposed the decision as the reason was not reducing burden on students but to fulfill other purposes.

“NCERT had made many revisions to the textbooks of Classes 6 to 12. The Kerala Government had opposed this decision academically. The argument for the revisions relied on reducing the burden on children in the aftermath of Covid-19, however, any one who sees the text can realise that these changes are not for academic reason but to fulfill certain nefarious purposes,” it said.

Also Read | ‘Embarrassed’ by NCERT book rationalisation, former advisors want their names removed

Kerala teaches school students of Classes 6 to 10 with State Council of Educational Training and Research (SCERT) and thus the revisions made to the books of these classes do not affect the state, the education department said. However, NCERT textbooks are used to teach Classes 11 and 12 and “chapter dropped in history, politics, economics, etc., cannot be justified by any academic group.”

As per Kerala education department, NCERT dropped Mughal history, industrial revolution, partition of India from history textbooks, martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi, five-year plans, emergency, India’s democratic protests from political science, many international events and parts on American empire from economics, and Indian social dynamics and caste dynamics from sociology syllabus.