Children are taught opinions, arguments as history: Senior Educationist
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New Delhi: A senior educationist working with the government's school education programme flagged errors committed in the NCRT textbooks in the form of 'opinions or arguments' instead of facts.
Anita Karwal, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, said that the certain parts of NCERT textbooks, particularly those dealing with history, have been filled with opinions or arguments, which make children difficult to distinguish facts, claims and opinions.
Karwal is said to have made this before a national consultation on curriculum revision held Monday.
A child should be able to distinguish certain aspects before reaching a conclusion given what is taught in schools and the internal conflict in society, she said. However, the country's current education system does not equip a child with skills to distinguish between a claim, fact, opinions and arguments, Karwal added.
She said that history textbooks are not entirely based on facts, rather based on opinions or arguments, for the same reason the NCERT texts are being criticised.
The remarks were made during a day-long interaction of 25 groups of experts with the National Steering Committee revising the National Curriculum Framework (NCF). The groups, which represent areas ranging from Knowledge of India to Mathematics Education, have been tasked with preparing position papers, which will inform changes in the curriculum and textbooks, by May 15.