CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu’s State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) has recently constituted an internal review committee to rectify errors in textbooks. The move assumes significance in the wake of a controversy over the statement in one of the textbooks that Sanskrit is much older than Tamil.
The committee will recommend changes to the State Board textbooks based on analysis of issues flagged by students, teachers and other stakeholders. The committee comprising SCERT officials and six lecturers will conduct periodic review meetings where these issues will be discussed, said a senior SCERT official. Last year the State government revamped the textbooks of classes 1,6,9 and 11 and the remaining textbooks were revised this academic year. Another major discrepancy noticed in the textbooks is portrayal of Tamil poet Subramaniya Bharathi wearing an orange turban.
“The objective of 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 syllabi for different subjects are interlinked, relevant and factually accurate,” said the senior official.
The SCERT officials have instructed block-level officials from the District Institute for Education and Training (DIET) to visit at least one school every working day (a minimum of 16 schools a month) and note down issues teachers face with the textbooks, 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. A review meeting will be held once in three months.