After Darwin's theory, periodic table, NCERT drops more chapters; defends move

The National Council of Educational Research and Training, or NCERT, the autonomous organisation set up by the Government of India, has dropped more topics from class 10th textbooks, besides Darwin's theory and the periodic table. The chapters that have been removed include democracy, political parties (full page) and challenges to democracy.

According to NCERT, the move has been undertaken with an aim to reduce the content load on students in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, news agency ANI reported.

It must be noted that the NCERT earlier removed scientific topics such as Darwin's theory and the periodic table from Class 10 CBSE science textbooks. The chapters that have been removed include Charles Darwin on evolution, origin of life on Earth, and human evolution and heredity as well as the chapter on periodic classification of elements.

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As per NCERT, these chapters were not taught during the pandemic as there was temporary rationalisation of syllabus. The chapter titled “Heredity and Evolution” has been changed to “Heredity”.  

Besides these, it also dropped references to the demand for a separate Sikh nation Khalistan from the class 12 political science textbook following objections from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).

The SGPC had last month alleged that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) misrepresented historical details about Sikhs in its Class 12 political science textbook.

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