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Congress calls M M Joshi a 'textbook terrorist'

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The Congress on Wednesday said Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi would go down in history as a "textbook terrorist" for whom curriculum preparation is a covert operation.

Launching a broadside at the minister, chief Congress spokesman S Jaipal Reddy said, "Dr Joshi's outfits like the NCERT [National Centre for Educational Research and Training] function in a hush-hush manner to get textbooks prepared by shadowy figures."

He pointed out that the names of the new authors of textbooks had not been made public, nor had the original authors been notified about changes made to their books.

Most importantly, he said, the new curricula have not been approved by the Central Advisory Board of Education, which has education ministers of all states as its members.

Reddy pointed out that while his party welcomes the NCERT's decision to lessen the load on schoolchildren, "we wish to point out that the path of compression is very slippery".

The process of abridgement had apparently been abused with unwanted inclusions and exclusions, he said. "This exercise again underscores the imperative need for a transparent process and consensual approach in a sensitive matter like textbook preparation."

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