In a bid to rationalize the syllabus for Classes 9 to 12, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday removed sections on Citizenship, Nationalism, Secularism, Understanding Partition & Democratic Rights from the political science curriculum of Class 11 for the 2020-'21 academic year.
The political science curriculum for Class 10 students was also restructured to remove chapters on democracy and diversity; gender, religion, and caste; popular struggles and movement, among other sections.
Sub-sections including "why do we need local governments?" and "growth of local government in India" was also removed from the curriculum. The revised curriculum along with the list of deleted chapters and topics was uploaded by CBSE on its website.
The move drew flak on twitter with users calling it as strange, shameful and disturbing.
Strange the CBSE has asked the NCERT to drop some of the crucial and controversial chapters, including–for instance in Social Science–democratic rights, challenges to democracy, citizenship, food security, gender, religion, caste and secularism@yadavtejashwi @PrashantKishor
— Rakesh Ranjan (@rranjan31) July 8, 2020
The scrapping of crucial topics from political science also led to an uproar among the netizens, some of who also called for the boycott of CBSE.
Dear Indian parents,
— Aarthi K (@RTKumaraSwamy) July 8, 2020
You probably don't care much for society, democracy or the environment. But if you care for your kids' mental & emotional maturity, you'll boycott CBSE until this govt changes. Propaganda destroys your kids' prospects of good jobs and a decent family life. https://t.co/mj5FgmAusC
Prominent politicians like Derek O'Brien and Economist and Member of Rajya Sabha and Journalist Nidhi Razdan also took to twitter to snub the move.
Remove the chapter on democracy too and be done with it https://t.co/Gc0kkIT3No
— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) July 8, 2020
Democratic Rights, Secularism & other chapters dropped from school courses:
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 8, 2020
What else to expect from a regime headed by someone claiming to have a degree in 'entire political science'? Sheer hypocrisy of self-proclaimed Constitution-bhakts is staggering!https://t.co/qGuJOvVuTn
CBSE decides to drop topics like Citizenship, Secularism, Federalism, Democratic Rights & more.
— Derek O'Brien | ডেরেক ও'ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) July 8, 2020
Many educationists, school principals, students not happy about this decision. What's your view?
Join me & @TheDeshBhakt on #Instagram LIVE today at 5.30 pm. Let's discuss this. pic.twitter.com/ZIrFS4h39k
Amid the backlash, some people even came forward to defend the central board, calling it a step towards creating 'more non-thinking, non-critical, non-confrontational servants which would serve future authorities well'.
Pls don't criticize this move.
— meghnad 🔗 (@Memeghnad) July 8, 2020
This is what India needs. More subservient people.
CBSE is doing its best to create more non-thinking, non-critical, non-confrontational servants which would serve future authorities well. https://t.co/9pwAuw7dft
Earlier on Tuesday, the Ministry of Human Resource Development had asked the CBSE to reduce the syllabus for Classes 9 to 12 amid the coronavirus outbreak. Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, in a tweet, had said, "Considering the importance of learning achievement, it has been decided to rationalize syllabus up to 30% by retaining the core concepts."
Also Read: CBSE Removes Chapters on Secularism, Citizenship, Nationalism From Syllabus