The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) responded on Friday to concerns from two former chief advisors who wanted their names removed from the political science textbooks because of "irrational cuts and large deletions." NCERT emphasised its right to make changes based on copyright ownership and stated that the "withdrawal of association by any one member is out of the question" given that the textbooks are the result of a collective effort.
In a letter sent to NCERT director DS Saklani on Friday, Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra Yadav—who served as chief advisors for the political science textbooks for grades 9 through 12 originally released in 2006–07—expressed their concerns. In the letter, they expressed regret at being linked with what they called "mutilated and academically dysfunctional" publications and said that they had been unable to identify any pedagogical basis for the recent textbook rationalisation exercise.
"The roles of the members of the Textbook Development Committees in various capacities…were limited to advising on how to design and develop the textbooks or contributing to the development of their contents and not beyond this. Textbooks at the school level are ‘developed’ based on the state of our knowledge and understanding of a given subject. Therefore, at no stage is individual authorship claimed, hence the withdrawal of association by any one member is out of the question,” read the statement by NCERT.
The Council further explained that it still prints each adviser and committee member's name in each textbook to recognise their scholarly contribution and "for the sake of record."
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