Editor
In Short: Significant changes have been made to the Class 10 curriculum in India, removing chapters on subjects like the periodic table, democracy, and sources of energy. The aim is to reduce the workload on students. Educators and scientists are concerned about these exclusions, particularly the removal of the periodic table. The government defends the changes, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and the option for students to study these subjects in higher grades.
The decision to remove these chapters has raised concerns among educators and scientists. Earlier this year, the exclusion of the theory of evolution from the Class 10 science curriculum had already sparked controversy. Now, newly released textbooks by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have revealed further cuts, including the chapter on the periodic table. Additionally, chapters on environmental sustainability and sources of energy have been dropped from the science textbook, while complete chapters on democracy, challenges to democracy, and political parties have been eliminated.
The NCERT has stated that the reduction in curriculum content was necessary to alleviate the workload on students, particularly in light of the challenges posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The reasons cited for dropping these chapters include the difficulty level, overlapping content, and their perceived irrelevance in the present context.
It should be noted that although these chapters have been removed from the Class 10 curriculum, students still have the option to learn about these subjects if they choose to study them in Class 11 and Class 12. In India, Class 10 is the final year in which science is a compulsory subject. Only students who elect to study chemistry in the last two years of their education will have the opportunity to delve into the periodic table.
| Subject | Chapters |
|---|---|
| Science | Chapter 5: Periodic Classification of Elements |
| Chapter 14: Sources of Energy | |
| Chapter 16: Sustainable Management of Natural Resources | |
| Democratic Politics-l | Chapter 5: Popular Struggles and Movements |
| Chapter 6: Political Parties | |
| Chapter 8: Challenges to Democracy | |
| Source: NCERT | |
Critics, including Jonathan Osborne, a science-education researcher at Stanford University, have expressed concerns over the exclusion of the periodic table, highlighting its significance as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of chemists and its role in explaining the combination of life's building blocks to create substances with diverse properties.
The NCERT's rationalization exercise has faced criticism in the past, with more than 1,500 scientists and educators signing an open letter expressing their concerns about the removal of the theory of evolution. However, the government has dismissed these criticisms as propaganda.
Minister of State (MoS) for Education, Subhas Sarkar, defended the changes, stating that the rationalization was aimed at reducing the study burden on students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He mentioned that Darwin's Theory is readily available on various websites, and it is already included in the Class 12 syllabus, making the allegations of false propaganda unfounded.