Anu
In a new swath of so-called “rationalisations” aimed at “reducing burden on students” NCERT has omitted sections on ‘Evolution’ from the syllabus of class 10th Biology. The dropped topics include Origin of life on Earth, Molecular Phylogeny, Evolution, Evolution and Classification, Tracing Evolutionary Relationships, Evolution by Stages, and Human Evolution.
“An Appeal Against Exclusion of Evolution from Curriculum”, signed by over 4000 scientists and intellectuals argues that evolutionary biology is key to our understanding of the biological world, furthermore that these lessons have immense application in areas of medicine and drug discovery, epidemiology, ecology and environment, to psychology, and it also addresses our understanding of humans and their place in the tapestry of life.
However, we must look beyond the merely scholastic critique, we must also look at the larger socio-economic implications of this and the other “rationalisations” of syllabus over the years in the BJP milieu. These syllabus reductions, in the face of ever increasing complexity and rigour of the competitive exams, something NEP serves to promote with its introduction of CUET, in turn brings colleges earlier outside the purview of the competitive exams, into it. This in turn only serves the interests of the coaching institutes, with the minimum enrollable age in these institutes falling by the year, NEP and it’s proposed changes to the syllabus, college admission exams and course structures, bolsters the expansion of coaching institutes, wherein coaching institutes become essential, and not an additional help in cracking these exams. Such changes in turn will only seek to further disenfranchise students from marginalised backgrounds from
educational access, as these spaces, with their high fees and savarna dominance, are completely hostile and inaccessible to these students.
These removals coupled with the increased push for the Indian knowledge system also show a worrying trend parallel to that seen in the USA in the Christian Right’s crusade against science. This along with increasing fund cuts to basic science and research show the divisive and anti-rationalist agenda of the fascist forces.
It is then of utmost importance to understand the political character of these changes made in the name of “academic creativity”. The NEP is yet another attempt at shrinking the public sphere, it is also an out and out assault on the integrity of education, with it being twisted to serve the Hindu nationalist agenda of this fascist Sanghi government, and it also seeks to widen the gap in access to these educational institutions of the marginalised, firmly seeking to make them Savarna spaces. We, the students must then come together to fight back these changes with our entire might. We must ensure that our educational spaces work for our interests and not those of neoliberal Hindutvavadis.
