House panel calls for content overhaul, textbook design

The Standing Parliamentary Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, headed by BJP leader Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe, has recommended major reforms to the content and design of textbooks. A report on the subject, adopted by the panel here on Friday, reportedly recommended that contributions from experts from multiple disciplines be sought to ensure balance and diversity of viewpoints in textbooks.

“Textbooks should instill constitutional values ​​and should promote national integrity and unity,” said one member. Activity area After the meeting.

The panel also suggested adding specific points. For example, in Standard Six, the books want NCERT, SCERT, and CBSE to add that the Dravidians were urban while the Aryans were rural and nomadic and the Aryans pushed the Dravidians south of the country. The panel says that even the Indus Valley civilization is also referred to as the Dravidian civilization.

The panel also believes that the “hype” of Mughal rulers should be removed and that the story of the Sikh gurus and their struggle should be included in the textbooks. They want the councils to add “the imprisonment of Guru Nanak by Babur, the compilation of Shri Adi Granth, the execution of Guru Arjun Dev by Jahangir etc” in the textbooks with “the Mughal empire and religious intolerance of” Aurangzab and Jahangir and the martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur to defend freedom of religion ”.

Before teaching Karl Marx to students, the panel wants the guidance to make reference to Guru Nanak’s message on spiritual socialism in textbooks and the impact of the teachings of Karl Marx and VI Lenin on Bhagat Singh. The panel also wants to give students the opportunity to study the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution.

“Effective teaching”

“Mandatory standards for textbook content, graphics and layout, additional materials and teaching approaches should be developed. Such standards are needed for print and digital textbooks, ”said one member.

The panel also demanded child-friendly textbooks with the use of pictures, graphics, QR codes and other audiovisual materials, another member said.

The panel wants NCERT and SCERT to integrate ancient wisdom, knowledge and teachings about life and society from the Vedas and other texts into the school curriculum. “In addition, we recommended that the educational methodologies adopted in old universities like Nalanda, Vikramshila and Takshila be studied and modified appropriately to serve as a benchmark model for teachers,” the member said. The contributions of ancient India in the fields of philosophy, science, mathematics, medicine, Ayurveda, epistemology, natural sciences, politics, economics, ethics, linguistics, the arts, etc. can also be included in textbooks, the member added.

“Indian traditional knowledge systems should be linked to modern science and presented in the contemporary context in NCERT textbooks,” he added.