KANCHEEPURAM: Torn sheets of paper flying around like confetti on the premises of a Kancheepuram school on Saturday drew the attention of passersby, triggering a rumour that “some elements” were tearing apart textbooks.
But a peep into the Rani Annadurai Municipal Girls’ HSS revealed that only one leaf was being torn dutifully by a group of teachers who had come over to collect Tamil language textbooks for Classes I and VI.
Pulling out a leaf (pages 129 and 130) from the Class VI book and letting it fly in the air, the teachers—squatting in the open within the school ground—willingly went about their assigned job, which also included manual blackening out of objectionable portions.
One of the ‘objectionable’ images was the sun in the second chapter—‘Rotating and Orbiting Earth’. Many teachers justified the government order to blacken the image in the textbook on the ground that “it has a striking resemblance to the symbol of Kalaignar TV.”
“The manually corrected books have to be delivered to the students by Monday morning, and hence, it is not possible for either the CEO or the DEO to finish it without the involvement of teachers,” said Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan CEO Murugan.
The teachers, from various district schools, had come to collect the books—prescribed under the Uniform School Education scheme (Samacheer Kalvi), as the same syllabus will be followed for Classes I and VI.