Goodbye Darwin, Mendeleev & Mendel! To make for a lighter academic load after the Covid pandemic, the National Council of Educational Research and Training has decided to drop chapters on the periodic classification of elements, Charles Darwin theory of evolution, the origin of life on Earth and heredity from Class 10 CBSE science textbooks.
The other topics dropped from the science textbook are chapters on environmental sustainability and sources of energy. Entire chapters on democracy, challenges to democracy and political parties have also been dropped for Class 10 students after the latest revision.
The NCERT says that it was imperative to reduce the load on students in light of the coronavirus pandemic. “Difficulty level, overlapping content and content irrelevant in the present context” are some of the reasons listed by the NCERT for dropping these chapters from the curriculum.
The removal of evolution from the curriculum for students aged 15-16 had already garnered significant attention and sparked a protest petition. However, the NCERT’s newly released textbooks have revealed further cuts, including a chapter on the periodic table and various pollution- and climate-related topics for younger learners. Biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics, and physics books for older students too have been amended.
According to the NCERT, these chapters were not taught during the pandemic due to a brief rationalisation of the syllabus. The title of the chapter ‘Heredity and Evolution’ has been shortened to ‘Heredity’.
Age of uNCERTainty
These changes, affecting approximately 134 million students aged 11-18, have caused outrage among researchers and educators.
Akshata Shetty, a science teacher at the Somaiya School in Ghatkopar, claims to have been shocked when the syllabus was introduced. “The periodic table is such a fundamental and basic concept, especially for students who choose to pursue science in the future,” she added.
The primary difficulty for kids, according to Shetty, is that “every concept they will learn in Grades 11 and 12 will be based on these fundamentals, such as the periodic table. The possibility of colleges teaching these essential concepts to students is quite low, so students may need to study them independently.”
Dr Pallavi Menon, the assistant biology teacher at the R D & S H National College, Mumbai, claims, “This is a decision that must be reversed; these are concepts fundamental to science.”
Dr Menon believes that evolution is the foundation of what life on Earth means and how we came to be. “These universal concepts and life go hand in hand, hence these chapters, in my opinion, should be restored. Every learner should be aware of these principles and have a firm grasp of them,” she added.
Dr Anusha Ramanathan, assistant professor, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, argues that the editing of the text does not appear to be in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to which we have committed.
“It does not align with the nation-building visions we have, for either climate change, knowledge of science, or understanding the varied perspective that we study in NEP,” asserts Dr Ramanathan.
Claiming that these edits will not allow students to explore and gain alternative perspectives, Dr Ramanathan believes that, “It does not prepare students for the real world or for being global citizens in the 21st century.”
She wonders why the syllabus has been reduced. “Are the students less able? Though Covid has harmed students and there is loss of learning, textbook revisions imply that students are likely to learn less in the coming years.”
“The editing that has been done will leave students with a lack of skills, competency, acceptance, tolerance, and a composite understanding of life,” Dr Ramanathan concludes.
Dr Mohammed Rizwan, an associate professor at the R T M University, Nagpur, and a former post-doctoral scientist at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad, believes that rather than removing these chapters on evolution, the NCERT should have included more chapters, such as ‘How humans came into being’ and ‘How species evolve’, leaving students to decide what to believe.
“These are fundamental principles that should be taught to students at a young age,” says Dr Rizwan.
According to the NCERT, it was important to reduce the load on students in light of the coronavirus pandemic. “Difficulty level, overlapping content, and content irrelevant in the present context” are some of the reasons listed by NCERT for dropping these chapters from the curriculum.
Students, though, can still learn about these subjects, but only if they opt for the relevant subject in Classes 11 and 12. In India, Class 10 is the last year in which science is taught as a compulsory subject. Only students who elect to study chemistry in the final two years of education (before entering university) will learn about the periodic table.
