Textbooks Updated, Their Content Reduced As Part Of Rationalisation Last Year: NCERT Director On Removal Of Mughal Chapters

Starting this academic session, UP Schools will introduce new NCERT class 12 history textbooks that do not include some chapters related to Mughal Empire.

Nothing has changed this year, says NCERT Director on removal of Mughal chapters.

Source : NCERT

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) rationalised the content of school textbooks last year. As a result, there are many chapters, including the Mughal courts, the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cold War era, and reproduction of organisms, which now stand removed from history and some other textbooks of classes 10 to 12 in schools affiliated to the UP Secondary Education Board.

The UP Board of Secondary Education (UP Board) has said the syllabi for classes 10th, 11th, and 12th, which follow the NCERT curriculum, were updated to reflect the recent changes.

"I don’t know why people are making it an issue. Nothing has changed this year. Rationalisation of textbook content was done last year and board exams were conducted on the basis of the rationalised content. Books are printed every year,” Professor Dinesh Prasad Saklani, Director, NCERT, told ABP Live.

“The Parliamentary Committee had directed to reduce the content load in order to give relief to students as Covid-19 created a learning loss as well as time loss.” Prasad said. 

Asked why these chapters were removed, Prasad said: “NCERT has been engaged in rationalising the content of the textbooks for many years, which is not a new development. This involves a group of experts who are highly professional. It is important that we do not want to see this in a narrow manner and create unnecessary controversy."

Chapters Related To Mughal Empire Removed

The chapters and topics related to ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (C. 16th and 17th centuries)’ from the history book, ‘Themes of Indian History-Part II’, were removed last year.

In the Class 12 Civics book, chapters such as 'US hegemony in world politics' and 'The Cold War Era' were removed. Also, the Class 12 'Politics in India Since Independence' textbook no longer includes chapters on 'Rise of popular movements' and 'Era of one-party dominance.'

The NCERT removed chapters such as 'Central Islamic lands,' 'Confrontation of cultures', and 'The Industrial Revolution' from the Class 11 textbook, 'Themes In World History'.

In Class 10, chapters on 'Democracy and diversity', 'Popular struggles and movement', and 'Challenges to democracy' were removed from the textbook, 'Democratic Politics-II.