Design or Hack Job? Evolution and Periodic Table Scrapped
Sanjay Kumar | 15 June 2023 | Newsclick
Image courtesy: Pxfuel
The decision by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) to remove the theory of evolution and the periodic table from the prescribed science textbook for tenth-standard students snowballed into a major controversy. Even Nature, one of the oldest science journals of international repute, found it important enough to write an editorial.
The NCERT has justified these deletions as a “rationalisation” of the syllabus to reduce the burden of rote learning on students by removing overlapping and difficult topics. A look at the latest and previous versions of the textbook indicates the actual reasons may be very different. These deletions raise questions about science pedagogy in schools. The manner and choice of deleted topics indicate a hack job rather than a well-thought-out exercise.