SUCI(C) vehemently oppose drastic changes in school syllabus and calls for intensifying save education movement
Comrade Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI(C), has issued the following statement today: “We vehemently oppose the most disastrous changes made in the school syllabus in its fourth round of revision and updating of NCERT textbooks since 2014. In science curriculum of Class X, Darwinian theory of evolution and Mendeleev’s Periodic table, two pivotal theories of modern science, have been dropped. Poetries by two eminent Muslim poets like Iqbal and Faiaz Ahmed Faiaz have been omitted. The history of Mughal and Sultani period have been trimmed to the minimum. A two-page table detailing the achievements of Mughal emperors such as Humayun, Shah Jahan, Akbar, Jahangir and Aurangzeb have also been removed. Period of cold war and Non Aligned Movement have also been jettisoned. Details of the horrific anti-minority Gujarat pogrom has been deleted from the sociology course of Class XI. The portion on Ayodhya (Ram Mandir Babri Masjid) has been pruned from four to two pages and instead focuses on the Supreme Court judgement that paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple at the site where the disputed structure once stood before it was torn down by Hindu activists in December 1992. Babri Masjid is described as “a three-dome structure (that) was built at the site of Shri Ram’s birthplace in 1528, but the structure had visible displays of Hindu symbols and relics in its interior as well as its exterior portions”. All newspaper clippings on Babri demolition have been eliminated. From the assertion that recent studies of ancient DNA obtained from archaeological sources at an Indus Valley site in Haryana, rule out Aryan immigration to a call for more research into whether the Harappans and the Vedic people were the same, several crucial topics have been tweaked in the textbooks. This is nothing but deforming the learning process and further push school education to the precipice of ruination. Though the authorities claim that there is no intention to saffronize education and such updating is routine, fact is that the entire modification is aimed at stripping education of its essence, systematically banishing whatever remnants of secular-scientific-rational-fact based education are still in existence, aiming to make the students bereft of scientific argumentative mindset and be led to the mystic alley of blind faith, with a view to strengthening fascist culture. Our fervent appeal to the education-loving people, academicians, intellectuals, teachers, students and all other conscientious sections of the masses to intensify countrywide powerful save education movement, unmask the hidden agenda behind the so called National Education Policy 2020 and prevent the impending disaster.”