Amid the row over revision of NCERT textbooks, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday alleged that the institution has been functioning as an RSS affiliate since 2014.
NNCERT Row: Amid the row over revision of NCERT textbooks, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday criticized the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and said it was “no longer a professional institution” but a political tool for the ruling party.
Sharing a post on X, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote,” The National Testing Agency has blamed the NCERT for the ‘grace marks’ fiasco in NEET 2024. That is only drawing attention away from the NTA’s own abject failures. However it is true that the NCERT is no longer a professional institution. It has been functioning as an RSS affiliate since 2014. It has just been revealed that its revised Class XI political science textbook criticises the idea of secularism as well as what it considers policies of political parties in this regard. NCERT’s objective is to produce textbooks, not political pamphlets and propaganda.”
The Congress’ General Secretary in charge of Communications made these comments following the National Testing Agency’s attribution of responsibility to NCERT for the “grace marks” controversy in the 2024 NEET examinations, which determine admission to medical colleges.
“NCERT is mounting an assault on our country’s Constitution in whose Preamble secularism features explicitly as a foundational pillar of the Indian republic. Various Supreme Court judgments have clearly held secularism to be an essential part of the basic structure of the Constitution. NCERT needs to remind itself that it the National Council for Educational Research and Training, not the Nagpur or Narendra Council for Educational Research and Training. All of its textbooks are now of dubious quality vastly different from those that shaped me in school,” the Congress leader said.
Rejecting accusations of saffronisation of school curriculum, the NCERT director has said that references to Gujarat riots and Babri masjid demolition were modified in school textbooks because teaching about riots “can create violent and depressed citizens,” news agency PTI reported.
While interacting with PTI editors, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said the tweaks in textbooks are part of annual revision and should not be a subject of hue and cry. “Why should we teach about riots in school textbooks? We want to create positive citizens not violent and depressed individuals,” Saklani said, news agency PTI reported.
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