-The Hindu ‘It did not seem to be too happy with recommendations’ The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Wednesday decided to hold further consultations on the S.K. Thorat Committee report that recommended the removal of 21 cartoons and words, which, it said, were “ambiguous,” negative or showed politicians and bureaucrats in an ‘incorrect’ way, from the Social Science and Political Science textbooks for Classes IX-XII. Sources in the NCERT...

-The Hindu In ordering the deletion of certain cartoons and words from a number of social and political science school textbooks, the committee constituted by the National Council for Educational Research and Training appears to have followed the line of least resistance. First the two cartoons that have generated political controversies were promptly sent to the trash tray; and then, many, many more. With a mandate to review the textbooks and...

The dissent note by a member of a government appointed committee reviewing textbooks of political science avers that the pedagogic intent and methods of the NCERT textbooks are sound and they encourage critical dialogue among learners.  M.S.S. Pandian (mathiaspandian57@gmail.com) is member, the NCERT Committee for Reviewing the Textbooks of Social Science/Political Science and teaches history at the Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.   It...

-The Hindu There is nothing inappropriate in the NCERT social science textbooks and the tools used are indeed imaginative exercises in critical pedagogy, says M.S.S. Pandian in his note dissenting with the S.K. Thorat panel, which has ordered deletion of several cartoons and words. The six-member committee was constituted in the wake of a controversy over an Ambedkar cartoon in a class XI textbook. “I read all the textbooks with care, and from...

-The Hindu An R.K. Laxman drawing, perceived as showing students in Tamil Nadu agitating against Hindi in 1965 in a poor light, is one of the 10 cartoons recommended for removal from NCERT textbooks by a committee. The cartoon on the anti-Hindi agitation, published in the Class XII Political Science book, angered political parties in Tamil Nadu, with the DMK demanding its removal. While recommending the removal of some “objectionable” cartoons, the six-member...