Evolution teaches children that change is an opportunity, erasing it from NCERT textbooks is huge disservice
Partha P Majumder | 25 April 2023 | The Indian Express
Enabling children to learn the concept of evolution goes beyond its power as a scientific explanation.
Some extraordinary events in understanding science and imparting science education have taken place in the last month or so. We have known that our eye is a complex organ and enables us to see. The quality of life of those who cannot see is hugely compromised. How did such a complex organ come to be? On April 10,we learnt that a gene donated to us by bacteria has enabled us to see. More about that later.
On April 20, about 2,000 scientists including me, wrote to the Government of India to repeal some recommendations of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) about high-school science education that have been implemented. The NCERT had recommended in May 2022 some sweeping “rationalisation” of contents of high-school science textbooks, ostensibly to “reduce content load on students” “in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.”