Now, periodic table off Class X syllabi

Tribune News Service

Karam Prakash

New Delhi, June 1

After removing Darwin’s theory of evolution, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), in the name of lowering burden on Class X students, has now removed topics on periodic classification of elements and sources of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from the science textbook.

Science is a mandatory subject till Class X. It has been learnt that the NCERT has deleted an entire chapter. The deletion of these topics, claims the government, is part of the NCERT’s rationalisation policy to cut burden on students.

The NCERT said the National Education Policy-2020 had also emphasised on reducing the content load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with a creative mindset. The council has also deleted chapters on democracy and diversity, popular struggles and movements, political parties and challenges to democracy from Class X social science book. The chapter “Democracy and Diversity” contained important topics like 1968 Olympics Black Power salute and discrimination faced by members of the SC community in India.

Among reasons cited for these deletions include overlapping with similar content included in other subject areas in the same class, similar content included in the lower or higher class in the same subject, content can be learned by children through self-learning or peer-learning, and content irrelevant in the present context.