Page 20 - EW Oct 2023

Education News

port mode by students,” as demand- A letter written by former
ed by all DUSU candidates in their prime minister Jawaharlal
manifestos. “Also, as the hostels were Nehru to his daughter In-
closed for almost three years because dira Gandhi, and chapters
of the Covid pandemic, infrastruc- on vedic culture, rise of new
ture including piping and drainage religions, human rights,
needs repair,” says Dedha. women freedom fighters
Meanwhile political and media were inserted in their stead.
pundits in the national capital are However, with the new
reading the tea leaves to guess if the academic year 2023-24
DUSU election results are a pointer having already commenced
to the General Election scheduled for on April 1, and textbooks
early next year. Despite the BJP- printed and dispatched
affiliated ABVP candidates having (with old content) to all
secured three of the four top posts, government and aided
Congress has claimed it is advancing Madhu Bangarappa: invisible booklets schools statewide, Madhu
because it prevented an ABVP sweep. Bangarappa, the newly
According to Yashwant from the current academic year inducted minister for school education
Deshmukh, founder-director of 2023-24 and started work on fram- and literacy, declared that the revised
CVoter, an election research agency, ing its own State Education Policy. content will be printed and distrib-
one cannot ascertain the gains of Now, the state government has is- uted as additional booklets. But four
Congress without understanding sued directions to constitute a Text- months on, schools are yet to receive
where its votes came from. “If the books Revision Committee (TRC) these additional booklets.
NSUI’s margin of loss reduced after to rewrite textbooks to wipe out the With schools not having received
receiving votes from ABVP’s bank, it alleged hindutva propaganda of the “these additional booklets, school
is a gain. But if it gained from (left) previous BJP government in them. managements, teachers and students
parties like AISA or SFI, then it’s On September 25, the state gov- are in a state of confusion and driven
technically a loss, because ABVP still ernment appointed a new Textbooks to searching for textbook changes in
has a stronger, untouched vote base,” Revision Committee comprising 37 media reports. It’s unfortunate that
says Deshmukh, quoted by online education experts to revise textbooks successive governments are using
portal Quint (Sept 25). prescribed for 78,424 state board-af- textbooks as weapons of politicisa-
If at all the DUSU elections are filiated schools. The 37-member TRC tion to reflect their ideological biases.
an indicator of things to come at headed by Dr. Manjunath Hegde, Now that we have a new TRC, we sin-
the hustings next year, it is that a retired professor of history at Rani cerely hope that the mandate of this
the communist and left parties are Chennamma University, Belagavi, has committee is to upgrade the quality
continuously losing ground. And BJP been given three months to complete and content of textbooks, not merely
is winning it. the revision of first and second lan- to desaffronise them. Way back in
Autar Nehru (Delhi) guage Kannada textbooks for classes 2015, the Union HRD ministry had
I-X, Kannada textbooks for classes pointed out that Karnataka state
KARNATAKA IX-X and social science textbooks for textbooks are age inappropriate and
Textbooks ping pong classes VI-X. They have to be ready for lack quality content. No government
the academic year 2024-25.
has so far made an effort to address
It’s noteworthy that prior to ap- this important recommendation,”
omewhat unusually, the Con- pointment of the new TRC, the state’s says D. Shashi Kumar, general
gress government in Karna- education ministry had issued a circu- secretary, Associated Managements
Staka (pop.69 million), which lar dated June 17 revoking 18 changes of Private Schools in Karnataka
completed 100 days in office on introduced by its predecessor BJP (KAMS) which has over 4,000 mem-
August 27, is on fast-track towards government in Kannada and English- ber schools statewide.
fulfilling its education-related elec- medium social sciences textbooks for Unsurprisingly this ping pong re-
tion promises. On August 21, deputy classes VI-X children. The changes vision of children’s textbooks is de-
chief minister D.K. Shivakumar include removal of a chapter on RSS plored by genuine academics who
announced that as per its manifesto (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) believe it is inimical to students’
promise, the state government has founder Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedge- teaching-learning continuity. “In the
discontinued implementation of the war, and an essay authored by right- battle of ideologies of political par-
National Education Policy (2020) wing ideologue Chakravarti Sulibele. ties, students suffer. Teachers begin

20 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2023