Yogendra Yadav requests NCERT to remove his name from textbooks
What's the story
The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Friday said in a circular that "individual authorship" cannot be claimed for its textbooks. The statement came after political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar asked the academic body to drop their names as chief advisors, stating that they were "embarrassed" to be associated with the NCERT textbooks due to recent deletions.
Letter
Ashamed our names are mentioned as primary advisors: Letter
Yadav's and Palshikar's letter on Thursday said, "As academics who were naturally involved in the creation of these textbooks, we are ashamed that our names should be mentioned as primary advisors to these mangled and academically dysfunctional textbooks." "Both of us would like to distance ourselves from these textbooks and request the NCERT to drop our names," it added.
Details
Textbooks cannot be shaped in blatantly partisan manner, says letter
The letter continued, "Textbooks cannot and should not be shaped in this blatantly partisan manner and should not quell the spirit of critique and questioning among students of social sciences." "We were never consulted or even informed of these changes. If the NCERT did consult other experts for deciding on these cuts and deletions, we explicitly state that we fully disagree with them."
Twitter Post
Check out Yadav and Palshikar's letter
Prof @PalshikarSuhas and I have dissociated ourselves from the six NCERT textbooks that we had the honour to put together but that have now been mutilated beyond recognition. We have asked NCERT to remove our names from these books.
— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) June 9, 2023
Our letter (attached here) says:
"we fail to… pic.twitter.com/d8cGg3tFge
Response
Withdrawal of association out of question: NCERT
In response, the NCERT said, "Textbooks at school level are developed based on the state of our knowledge and understanding of a given subject. Therefore, at no stage, individual authorship is claimed, hence the withdrawal of association by any one is out of question." The NCERT added that the role of chief advisors was limited to advising how to design and develop the textbooks.
Twitter Post
Here's NCERT's full circular
Textbook Development Committees were constituted by NCERT from time to time. NCERT acknowledges their academic contribution and therefore publishes their names in the textbooks. Here is the list of areas where the members contribute. https://t.co/szNxVfj5nm pic.twitter.com/uS22lO2jxm
— NCERT (@ncert) June 9, 2023
More information
Palshikar, Yadav were chief advisors for original political science books
Notably, Yadav, also a Swaraj India leader, and Palshikar were chief advisers for the political science books for Classes 9 to 12, originally published in 2006-07 based on the 2005 National Curriculum Framework (NCF) version. Their names are mentioned in the list of textbook development team members at the beginning of each book and in the "letter to students."