NCERT drops chapters on periodic table, democracy from class 10 books to 'reduce content load' on students

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has reportedly dropped topics like the periodic classification of elements, democracy, political parties and challenges to democracies from class 10th textbooks.

In an official statement, NCERT said that the decision to drop such topics is aimed at reducing the content load on students.

"NCERT drops full chapters of Periodic Classification of Element, Democracy, political parties (full page) and Challenges to Democracy from class 10th textbook to reduce the content load on students in view of the Covid-19 pandemic," the education body said.

The decision to forego these topics has ignited a debate among educators, parents and teachers.

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NCERT has also dropped a chapter on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the origin of life on Earth, human evolution and heredity, according to News18. However, the body clarified that as part of its rationalisation process, the chapters were temporarily removed during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the science chapter on "Hereditary and Evolution" has been reduced to just "Hereditary" now.

NCERT explained that the move comes after it decided to address issues like content duplication, different levels of difficulty, irrelevant topics and the need to make course material like books more available to students.

NCERT drops references to Khalistan

In a string of radical changes, the education body also removed references to Khalistan and a "separate Sikh nation" that were mentioned in a political science chapter on Anandpur Sahib Resolution in class 12th, the education ministry announced on Tuesday.

The changes were made in tune with complaints made by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) which objected to the references.

Speaking to the Indian Express, a spokesperson of SGPC said, "We will analyse the changes made by the NCERT before dropping our objections. Our experts will look into the matter."

NCERT said in a statement, "In view of the representation received from stakeholders, particularly a letter from the SGPC regarding withdrawing objectionable content against Sikh community by misrepresenting Sri Anandpur Sahib Resolution.”

“In this regard, a committee of experts was constituted by the NCERT to examine the issue. The Committee examined the same and as per its recommendation, the following changes have been incorporated in Chapter 6 – Regional Aspirations (Rationalised Class 12 political science textbook),” it added.

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