NCERT on dropping periodic table, democracy from Class 10 books: ‘Reducing load’

The National Council of Educational Research and Training has defended dropping full chapters and pages on the periodic table and democracy from Class 10 school books. In a statement, following a row over the removal of certain chapters from Class 10 books, NCERT said it was done to reduce the content load on the students. Among the chapters and pages that were omitted from Class 10 science textbooks include Periodic Classification of Element, Democracy, political parties and Challenges to Democracy. Defending its decision to drop the chapters or pages from Class 10 textbooks, NCERT said, “NCERT drops full chapters of Periodic Classification of Element, Democracy, political parties and Challenges to Democracy from class 10th textbook to reduce the content load on students in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Sanjay Kumar, Secretary of School Education, said, “NCERT has its own procedure that when…a request is received, it forms a committee of exports and takes decisions based on the recommendations of that export committee.”