Bill to monitor religious propaganda in textbooks
Special Correspondent
Ministry accepts CABE suggestion to form National Textbook Council
# CABE will double up as a forum where complaints regarding textbooks can be registered
# Penal provisions being considered
NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development Ministry is working on legislation to set up a National Textbook Council to monitor school textbooks produced outside the government system â including Shishu Mandirs/Vidya Bharati schools run by the Sangh Paivar and madrasas â as recommended by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE).
Though still under consideration, the Ministry is planning to arm the proposed Council with executive powers to ensure that its recommendations carry weight and do not remain on paper alone. The draft legislation is ready and has been sent to the National Council of Educational Research and Training to secure legal opinion.
Some penal provisions are being considered though the Ministry is still working on the modalities of implementing them. Given the way the Indian education system is structured where the Government does not have a direct interface with schools, the penal provisions will in all likelihood be implemented through affiliating boards. Another issue that the Ministry is grappling with pertains to textbooks within the government stream. A case in point being the Gujarat Government school history books which eulogise Hitler.
By and large, the Ministry has accepted the recommendations of the CABE committee, headed by historian Zoya Hasan, in toto. The Council, as per the draft, will be an autonomous and independent body. It will double up as a forum where citizens can register complaints.
<b>
The CABE Committee had advocated a Textbook Council after it found that textbooks used in schools run by religious and social institutions contained a great deal of communal propaganda material.</b> The CABE committee scanned textbooks used by Vidya Bharati schools, including Shishu Mandirs, and madarsas across 11 States. It also examined textbooks brought out by private publishers.
In view of the very same difficulties that the Ministry is facing in ensuring that the recommendations of the Textbook Council are implemented, the CABE Committee has stopped short of making any suggestions on this front. According to it, the Council should be empowered to examine complaints and place its views in the public domain to generate a debate and sensitise people.
Besides, the Committee had suggested that CABE should set up a standing committee to keep itself updated on textbook-related issues.
Special Correspondent
Ministry accepts CABE suggestion to form National Textbook Council
# CABE will double up as a forum where complaints regarding textbooks can be registered
# Penal provisions being considered
NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development Ministry is working on legislation to set up a National Textbook Council to monitor school textbooks produced outside the government system â including Shishu Mandirs/Vidya Bharati schools run by the Sangh Paivar and madrasas â as recommended by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE).
Though still under consideration, the Ministry is planning to arm the proposed Council with executive powers to ensure that its recommendations carry weight and do not remain on paper alone. The draft legislation is ready and has been sent to the National Council of Educational Research and Training to secure legal opinion.
Some penal provisions are being considered though the Ministry is still working on the modalities of implementing them. Given the way the Indian education system is structured where the Government does not have a direct interface with schools, the penal provisions will in all likelihood be implemented through affiliating boards. Another issue that the Ministry is grappling with pertains to textbooks within the government stream. A case in point being the Gujarat Government school history books which eulogise Hitler.
By and large, the Ministry has accepted the recommendations of the CABE committee, headed by historian Zoya Hasan, in toto. The Council, as per the draft, will be an autonomous and independent body. It will double up as a forum where citizens can register complaints.
<b>
The CABE Committee had advocated a Textbook Council after it found that textbooks used in schools run by religious and social institutions contained a great deal of communal propaganda material.</b> The CABE committee scanned textbooks used by Vidya Bharati schools, including Shishu Mandirs, and madarsas across 11 States. It also examined textbooks brought out by private publishers.
In view of the very same difficulties that the Ministry is facing in ensuring that the recommendations of the Textbook Council are implemented, the CABE Committee has stopped short of making any suggestions on this front. According to it, the Council should be empowered to examine complaints and place its views in the public domain to generate a debate and sensitise people.
Besides, the Committee had suggested that CABE should set up a standing committee to keep itself updated on textbook-related issues.