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India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

nature.com

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Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#41

Post by screye »

alephnerd wrote: post #7

It's only affecting 10th grade CBSE (NCERT), not ICSE or state board* exams, let alone competitive board exams like the JEE (Engineering) or NEET (Medicine). It's still being taught in the NCERT books as well, but now in 12th grade instead of 10th grade. The scarier thing should be the rewriting of the history section of CBSE. * board is Indian English for curriculum Also, on the hierarchy of Indian board exams: Top…

> The scarier thing should be the rewriting of the history section of CBSE.

That is the one I am looking forward to. Indian history today is freedom struggle - mughal empire - freedom struggle - mughal empire - gandhi - nehru - akbar. Is all.

Indian history is long overdue for a huge revamp. We need more balanced views of the independence movement. We need greater exposure to non-Delhi kingdoms that shaped the major parts of the country. We need history of the period between 1947 - 2000.

World history needs to be taught from a non-western lens too. India needs to learn about the East & Africa, just as much as the west. This is especially valid because Indians have closer historic ties to South East Asia and diaspora in places like Guyana, the Caribbean and Africa. With the advent of population genomics, we must include findings about Sub-continental pre-history that are more scientific than the idle musings of some 18th century white guy.

PS: good summary of the Indian educational system. As you correctly pointed out, western intuitions about education do not transfer well to the Indian system.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#43

Post by burnished »

alephnerd wrote: post #28
whinenot wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Exam" isn't commonly used in American English. Huh? Is this a homeschool trend? Final exams are the cornerstone of US secondary and tertiary education.

The word "exam" isn't really used in American English. Tests are definetly a thing in the US.

Well, in the parts of the country I was educated in we had exams, and I would consider the word to be a normal part of people's vocabulary

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#44

Post by User23 »

blagie wrote: post #18

[flagged]

It's too bad, because actually teaching the theory of evolution by natural selection seems appropriate. Of course actually teaching it also means teaching the unknowns like, to name just a few, why did life begin, why did the Cambrian explosion happen, why did sex evolve when it reduces many genes' chance of being passed on by about 50%, how does gradual mutation select for structures like eyes, and what causes mutation fixation to increase to a rate that can explain the current genetic diversity on the planet?

And of course for many people it's an emotional issue because they think it has some kind of religious significance. Interestingly, I see that kind of religious obsession from atheists as well as the, in my view, less intellectually sophisticated theists. Personally, being Catholic, I have no problem with the theory of evolution by natural selection. I think the open questions are interesting and like any theory describing something as complex as the entire biosphere there are going to be many difficulties and perhaps there is a better theory waiting to be discovered, but the notion that God might have effected creation gradually through natural processes that He established just isn't a problem for my faith.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#45

Post by givemeethekeys »

I'm calling shenanigans.

There are many education systems in India. There's a central one, but each state has its own.

Indians at every economic level (except maybe the very top) value STEM education above everything else.

I wish we'd learn to dial back the hysteria. I wish people weren't so damn trigger happy.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#47

Post by neilk »

screye wrote: post #23

This makes no sense to me. This highly unlikely to be a political move. Science education is not political in India. Evolution, abortion, chemistry are not debated at all. This is more likely for the reasons to be innocuous. > In explaining its changes, NCERT states on its website that it considered whether content overlapped with similar content covered elsewhere, the difficulty of the content, and whether the conte…

I have no idea exactly how much this particular curriculum change is influenced by religion. But your assertion that science is depoliticized in India is very wrong.

In 2018, the education minister declared Darwin was wrong. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/indian-educati...

This is just one of many such troubling incidents, including apparent indifference to the murder of pro-rationalism academics.

Anecdotally, if you have people from India in your life, this is inescapable. Constant barrage of forwards on WhatsApp of Hindu supremacy, which necessarily have to flip history upside down. The story goes that Hindus had nuclear energy 10,000 years ago, but filthy foreigners corrupted Mother India.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#48

Post by alephnerd »

vkdelta wrote: post #40
alephnerd wrote: post #7

It's only affecting 10th grade CBSE (NCERT), not ICSE or state board* exams, let alone competitive board exams like the JEE (Engineering) or NEET (Medicine). It's still being taught in the NCERT books as well, but now in 12th grade instead of 10th grade. The scarier thing should be the rewriting of the history section of CBSE. * board is Indian English for curriculum Also, on the hierarchy of Indian board exams: Top…

Above ranking does not make sense at all. Is CBSE is so low ranked, why is prevalent board in Indian and schools abroad which favors CBSE? ICSE is more all round syllabus which makes sense but does not make it difficult or higher ranked than CBSE.

I'm just speaking from a content perspective. I'm American born and raised, but often used Indian STEM textbooks to prep for STEM related AP exams as well as competition exams like USAPHo, AIMEs, etc in High School.

In my experience for STEM, JEE >>>> ICSE >> CBSE

All programs will accept the CBSE (it's exclusionary not to), but the CBSE curricula does lag.

Either way, for admissions here in the US, IB/AP+SAT would be preferred over ICSE or CBSE, and the kind of person targeting American undergraduate from India can afford to study IB+AP.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#49

Post by spacKingChamath »

screye wrote: post #23

This makes no sense to me. This highly unlikely to be a political move. Science education is not political in India. Evolution, abortion, chemistry are not debated at all. This is more likely for the reasons to be innocuous. > In explaining its changes, NCERT states on its website that it considered whether content overlapped with similar content covered elsewhere, the difficulty of the content, and whether the conte…

Why would they risk saying its religious motivated at this point. Make the changes small, let the effects trickle in over a decade.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#50

Post by [deleted] »

james-redwood wrote: post #12

Reading the source that Nature cites, it seems like the content has been made temporarily unexaminable ‘in light of COVID’, rather than the section actually getting cut from the textbook. https://ncert.nic.in/rationalised-content.php Could any Indian with a new physical textbook perhaps confirm? It’s a rather concerning policy. The headline also seems awfully clickbaity. What the policy seems to have done is shifted…

[deleted]
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