CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) has constituted an internal review committee to rectify errors in the recently released textbooks. The move comes in wake of the controversy over a statement in one of the textbooks that Sanskrit is much older than Tamil.
The review committee will now recommend changes in the State board textbooks based on analysis of issues flagged by students, teachers and other stakeholders.
The committee, which comprises of SCERT officials and six lecturers, will conduct periodic review meetings where these issues will be discussed, said a senior official from the SCERT. Last year the State
the government had revamped the textbooks of classes 1,6,9 and 11 and the remaining textbooks were revised this academic year. Another major the discrepancy noticed in the textbooks is portrayal of Tamil poet Subramaniya Bharathiyar with an orange turban.
"The objective of setting up this committee is to ensure that the textbooks are free of errors, the content is easily understandable, age-appropriate and safe to be taught to children. In addition to this, they should also check if the toughness gradually increases with higher classes, whether the syllabus of different subjects is interlinked, relevant and factually accurate," said a senior official from SCERT.
In a bid to understand ground reality, SCERT officials have instructed block level officials from District Institute for Education and Training (DIET)s to visit at least one school every working day (a minimum of 16 schools a month) and note down issues teachers face with the textbook, the official said. Further, the DIET members should submit a weekly report every Friday to the committee based on issues raised by teachers in their blocks they are visiting.
"In order to simplify the process, we have equipped the DIET members with a standardised feedback table they can fill and submit," the official said. There are six columns in the table: serial number, page
number (on which the issue rose, unit number and title, a paragraph with column no or line or picture in the book, the correction to be made and the reason for the correction.)
The forms are then grouped subject-wise and will be passed to respective authors on a monthly basis and collectively discussed at the review meeting that will be held every three months, the official said adding that these meetings will facilitate and interaction between the authors of the textbooks, members from the DIET, lecturers, SCERT officials, and select subject teachers.
"After careful examination, if we are convinced that there is an issue with the textbook, we will issue a correction to all headmasters, ensure that students are not tested on the deleted portions and rectify it in the reprint of the textbook," the official said adding that any feedback on the textbook can be submitted to the SCERT office.