NCERT consulted 25 external experts for syllabus rationalisation, says govt

The deletions have been questioned and criticised by Opposition parties as well as prominent scholars. The most contested deletions are from history and political science textbooks for which the NCERT consulted five and four external experts, respectively, the Ministry of Education said in its response to a question by NCP MP Mohammed Faizal. One round of consultation each was held with the experts, it added.

For history textbooks, the five experts who were consulted were Umesh Kadam, a professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a member secretary at the Indian Council for Historical Research; Hindu College associate professor (history) Dr Archana Verma; Delhi Public School, RK Puram, teacher (head of department of history) Shruti Mishra and two Delhi-based Kendriya Vidyalaya teachers Krishna Ranjan and Sunil Kumar.

For political science, the NCERT held two rounds of consultations with four experts — Vanthangpui Khobung, an assistant professor of political science at NCERT’s Regional Institute of Education in Bhopal; Maneesha Pandey, who teaches political science at the Hindu College; and schoolteachers Kavita Jain and Sunita Kathuria.

In the case of sociology, three rounds of consultation were held with four external experts: Manju Bhatt, a former professor with the Department of Education in Social Science, NCERT; Achala Pritam Tondon, associate professor of sociology at Hindu College; Seema Banerjee, who teaches sociology at Delhi’s Laxman Public School, and Abha Seth, who also teachers the same subject at DAV Public School in Vasant Kunj.

“Aside from NCERT in-house experts, NCERT has informed that they seek expertise of subject experts from universities/organisations and practising teachers in all its activities related to research, development, training and extension for wider consultation,” the ministry said in response to the Lok Sabha MP’s question on why it did not consult social scientists associated with NCERT to carry out the rationalisation.

The NCERT also held a consultation meeting with 16 teachers nominated by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to discuss the rationalisation exercise, done in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, across the subject areas, the ministry added.

In June 2022, the NCERT made public a list of changes and deletions in the reprinted textbooks that came into the market recently. However, many deletions, including the ones on Mahatma Gandhi, were not notified and brought to the light by The Indian Express recently. The factors cited by the NCERT behind the deletions include content which are “overlapping”, “not relevant or outdated in the present context”, “difficult”, “easily accessible to children and can be learned through self-learning or peer-learning”.