Syllabus war takes toll on books

COIMBATORE: A picture of a bar magnet in the Class 6 science text book, an illustration of an apple with a black border in a class 1 textbook are some of the reasons why the academic future of school children across Tamil Nadu is in a state of uncertainity. Call it political paranoia, lack of clarity or even inspiration from symbolism but the Tamil Nadu government believes that these illustrations are hidden clues scattered in the Samacheer Kalvi text books to lure children towards the DMK ideology since red and black are the dominant colours of DMK’s party flag.“We have already distributed the Class 1 and Class 6 Samacheer Kalvi textbooks and we have been given instructions about the sections that are to be blacked out due to some objectionable aspects. Stickers have been given to each school and also a circular with instructions about the portions to be erased,” said N Anandhi, Chief Education Officer, Coimbatore.As per the government circular issued to schools, the objectionable portions have to be torn, blackened with permanent marker or pasted over with government issued stickers in the Samacheer Kalvi text books already distributed to first and sixth standard children. “Some of the instructions from the government are absolutely hilarious. Imagine believing that these are hidden plots to bring little children closer to DMK ideology,” said a senior academician in the city.In Class 1, four pages from the Tamil textbook and two pages from English have to be completely removed. While in the Class 6 textbook the government has censored a number of pages in Science, Social Science, English and Tamil Textbooks. Around nine pages have been blacklisted by the AIADMK government in these books citing that they had misleading information for students.“Some portions might be unnecessary like the mentioning of various social and health schemes introduced during the previous government’s term and also promoting former Chief Minister M Karunanithi,” said another city school official. The state government has already come under criticism for its approach to reforms in the school education sector resulting, which has resulted in academic schedules going haywire this year. It’s been almost two months since the schools in the state are awaiting the final word on this issue even as the government is persistently pursuing a legal battle to withhold the syllabus, citing various reasons.