Textbooks and the Curriculum: Understanding the Politics
Krishna Kumar | 6 July 2023 | The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy
Photo: The Hindu.
If you delete a few pages from a book, it will surely weigh less. If it is a textbook, this diminished weight will not necessarily imply that the curriculum it covers will also get lighter. In all probability, deletions from a textbook will make the curriculum feel heavier. This peculiar phenomenon was noticed by the Yash Pal Committee set up by the Union government in 1991 to suggest ways to reduce curriculum load. Its report, submitted two years later, pointed out that a major reason why children find learning at school burdensome is the lack of coherence in textbooks. When children fail to make sense of how the prescribed textbook explains concepts and provides information, they resort to cramming in order to overcome the sense of burden. The report, titled Learning without Burden 1, recommended greater deliberation in designing a syllabus in order to ensure that textbooks do not force children to cram.
One of its recommendations read:
“11. The public examinations taken at the end of Class X and XII be reviewed with a view to ensuring the replacement of the prevailing text-based and ‘quiz type’ questioning with concept-based questioning. This single reform is sufficient to improve the quality of learning and save the children from the tyranny of rote memorisation.”