INDIAN HISTORY BOOKS

1. Context

2. Who decides the content of Indian history textbooks?

• Education as a subject comes under both the state and central governments according to the constitution, meaning both the state and central governments have a role to play here.
• Further, India has multiple education boards across the country that decide crucial matters such as conducting exams and deciding the syllabus in schools.
• State education boards, the central board of secondary education (CBSE), and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) are a few examples. They are autonomous or independent bodies.
• They make decisions based on the guidelines laid down by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
• An autonomous organization, set up in 1961 by the government "to assist and advise the Central and State Governments" for improving the quality of education, NCERT's objectives include the task of preparing and publishing model textbooks.
• Its chairman is appointed by the Central government.
• For deciding the content of the textbooks, the NCERT is currently preparing a document called the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).
• It was last prepared in 2005 under the UPA government, and before that, it was revised in 1975, 1988, and 2000.
• The NCF will have broad guidelines for the revised syllabus that will be followed by the boards for their textbooks.

3. How are these guidelines laid down?

• The NCF is being developed according to the recommendations given in the National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020.
• If NEP is the guiding philosophy, then NCF is the pathway and this mandate is the constitution.
• Calling it a step towards the decolonization of the Indian education system, the focus will be on areas such as the holistic development of children, the vital role of teachers, learning in the mother tongue, and cultural rootedness.
• In September 2021, a committee was set up to draft these guidelines and will draft the final version later.
• The National Steering Committee includes 12 members and is headed by former ISRO Chief K Kasturirangan.
• The Committee also includes National Book Trust Chairman Govind Prasad Sharma, who has been the President of RSS's education wing Vidya Bharati which runs schools across India.

4. Way forward

• All states and UTs will develop their State Curriculum Frameworks (SCFs) after district-level consultations, surveys, and position papers by state-level focus groups in 25 areas such as science, gender education, social studies, etc.
• The State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) draw up the SCFs.
• Usually, the state drafts are modeled on the central draft, but a new bottom-up approach is being followed this time.
• After analyzing inputs received from the district-level consultations, states, and national-level surveys, the National Focus Group will prepare 25 position papers on the identified areas.
• NCF will be prepared after drawing insights from these papers and the draft SCFs.
• Finally, the draft NCF will be shared with the states/ UTs for their comments, and after possible changes, it will be placed before the Ministry of Education for approval.
• The document will be then sent to states and UTs for implementation.
• The NCF's revisions have a history of causing discontent among groups. After the 2005 NCF's recommendations, the NCERT replaced a book on Gautam Buddha for class 8 with Jawahar Lal Nehru's 'Discovery of India'.

5. Can some changes be made without this process?

• Yes, because these large-scale changes happen once in a decade.
• Even apart from them, NCERT can suggest changes which can include corrections, data updations, etc.
• History books were last changed significantly for Class 9 and Class 10 in 2019.
• In Class 9, deleted chapters included the history of clothing, the history of cricket, and one on capitalism and colonialism.

For Prelims