People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No.
27
July 13 , 2008
|
Vol. XXXII
No.
27 July 13 , 2008 |
Expert
Committee Formed To Look Into Textbook Controversy
THE
government of Kerala
formed an 18 member expert committee to look into the controversy
created over
VII standard Social Science textbook. Addressing a press conference in
New
Delhi on July 4, 2008, M A Baby, minister for Education and Culture,
government
of Kerala said that the committee is headed by noted historian K N
Pannikar and
includes Arjun Dev (retired professor, NCERT), Anita Rampal and Poonam
Batra
(department of Education, Delhi University). Though the representatives
of the
organisations which have criticised the text were also invited to join
the
committee, they have refused. He said the LDF led Kerala government was
first
in the country to make attempts at democratising the process of framing
the
curriculum for school textbooks. The Kerala Curriculum Framework has
been
evolved through consensus built up with the grassroots level
participation of
academics and people at large.
Baby
said that in order
to reduce students� burden of carrying a heavy load of books, the
textbooks
were divided into two parts. The controversial text is only the first
part of
the Social Science book for class VII. The second part is yet to be
printed and
circulated. He said the textbook is neither anti religious nor preaches
atheism. The story of Jeevan not only exemplifies the right to choose
one�s
religion which is guaranteed by the constitution, but also gives an
insight
into the new pedagogy of the text which empowers the children to
negotiate
knowledge for themselves. He said the Congress party and minority
institutions
are hand in glove with the BJP in opposing the textbook.
Aditya
Mukherjee from
the Centre for Social Sciences,
