In Kerala's higher secondary education, the NCERT curriculum is predominantly followed for the majority of subjects. Nonetheless, the core group of the state curriculum steering committee recently decided to incorporate in the humanities stream the portions that the NCERT had announced to remove from their syllabus. This committee, headed by state education minister V. Sivankutty, approved the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) to create handbooks to supplement the modified NCERT syllabus in higher secondary classes.
The NCERT’s proclaimed reason for its syllabus rationalisation exercise is “to reduce the content load on students”. It also cited the National Education Policy 2020, which emphasises “reducing the content load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with creative mindset”. The NCERT listed five reasons for omitting a chapter: Overlapping with similar content included in other subject areas in the same class; Similar content in the lower or higher class; difficulty level; content, which can be self-learned or undergo peer-learning; and content, which is “irrelevant in the present context”.
Incidentally, NCERT removed the Class XI chapters on poverty and infrastructure under Indian Economic Development; the chapters 'The Industrial Revolution', 'The Central Islamic Lands and 'Confrontation of Cultures' under Themes in World History; and chapters on Peace and Development under Political Theory.
More controversial omissions were seen in the Class XII syllabus. Under the Indian History, the chapter 'Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (C. Sixteen-Seventeenth Centuries)' which had a detailed account of the Mughal era was removed. Under Contemporary World Politics, chapters on the Cold War era and US Hegemony in World Politics were removed. And under ‘Politics in India Since Independence’, chapters ‘Era of One-party Dominance’, ‘Politics of Planned Development’, The Crisis of Democratic Order and ‘Recent Developments in Indian Politics’ were removed. The chapter 'The Crisis of Democratic Order' contained the portion “Controversies regarding Emergency” whereas the ‘Recent Developments in Indian Politics’ contained the “Gujarat Riots”. Under the syllabus rationalisation, chapters on Colonial Cities and Partition were also removed. The assassination of M.K. Gandhi is also on the omitted list of portions.
Like many other opposition parties, the CPI(M)—the ruling party in Kerala—also sees the NCERT's move as an effort to “saffronise” the curriculum. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier expressed his view that the omissions in NCERT textbooks are with a “political intention”, and that this action is “objectionable”.
"Historical facts cannot be rejected by cutting out what is inconvenient to them from textbooks. It is clear that the aim of such measures is to complete the saffronization of the textbooks," he posted on Facebook.
Now the steering committee took this decision in line with this pronounced stance of the ruling party. But the idea is to provide these additional handbooks only in the case of humanities subjects. A lot of portions in maths, science and commerce streams were also removed by the NCERT during its rationalisation process. However, the Kerala government's focus is only on the humanities subjects.
A member of the core group of the curriculum steering committee told THE WEEK that the idea is not simply to reprint the portions that were there in the NCERT textbooks. “Our idea is to reframe and present those portions that were omitted from the NCERT syllabus,” he said. Currently, NCERT textbooks are not followed in language subjects and also certain subjects in the commerce stream at the higher secondary level in Kerala.
The state education department is now in the process of updating all the SCERT textbooks, for all classes, in the state. This updating is happening after a gap of nearly 13 years. In May, the work on new textbooks for high school classes will commence. A panel has been already formed for this update. The creation of a handbook of NCERT-omitted portions for the higher secondary section will take place along with this process. It has been learned that the BJP-inclined teachers’ organisation, NTU, has raised concerns about including these omitted portions, but the steering committee, dominated by leftist intellectuals and left-leaning teachers’ associations, is moving forward with the plan.
One concern that came to the fore for discussion at the April 25 meeting was whether these "additional portions" would increase the content load on students. The steering committee’s major discussion was on how this was to be implemented, and which all portions to be retained. For creating these new handbooks, a new expert committee will be formed. This committee will decide which portions to be retained and which are to be added or omitted in the handbooks. It is yet to be seen whether these handbooks created by the CPI(M)-led government will retain portions of The Cold War Era and US Hegemony, too, while trying to “prevent the saffronisation” of textbooks.