BENGALURU: Only one booklet, with re-revised portions of textbooks of different classes, will be issued to each school in the State. While printing of the booklet is yet to begin, it should be completed and circulated to schools in 15 days, sources at the Karnataka Textbook Society said.This means that children will be given photocopies of revisions in their textbooks.
Minister for School Education and Literacy BC Nagesh defended the distribution of one booklet for each school. “This system is followed whenever there is re-revision. Only eight corrections were approved, so teachers will ask students to include the particular lines or missing words. When printing of textbooks is taken up for the next academic year, the corrections will be included,” he said.
Officials said the soft copy of the booklet will be made available to teachers, and on the Textbook Society website. The soft copy or photocopy of the re-revised portion can also be circulated among students, they said.A government schoolteacher, who did not want to be named, said, “In government schools, ‘Kalika Chetharike: learning recovery programme’ (to cope with Covid learning gap) is on. Learning sheets and teachers’ handbooks are being used from Class 1 to 9.”
Delay in printing of textbooks, or re-revision, has not affected government schools much. Kalika Chetharike materials, which were delayed, were managed with photocopies. After 15 days of foundation programmes, regular lessons for SSLC have begun, and children have got all textbooks, but nothing is re-revised in Class 10 books. In private schools, due to delay in availability of textbooks, photocopies/xerox copies of booklets are being circulated, they said.
Textbook tracker
Nearly two months since schools began, 96.5 per cent of textbooks are printed, and 92.02 per cent books have reached schools. The remaining textbooks are expected to reach all schools in a month, officials said.
IMPOSING LANGUAGE VIOLATES SC ORDER
Bengaluru: The Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) has submitted a memorandum to CM Basavaraj Bommai, objecting to the recommendations of the state in the NEP position paper on language education -- they include the mother tongue or regional language as medium of education at the primary level. KAMS general secretary Shashikumar D said that considering Articles 350-A, 19-1(a), 19-1(g), 19(2), 21, 21-A and others, the Supreme Court has held that right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)a of the Constitution includes the freedom of a child to be educated at the primary level in a language of choice, and the State cannot impose it, he said. He added the recommendation would be in violation of the SC verdict.
Only recommendations, says BC Nagesh
On the State’s NEP position paper to NCERT, Minister for School Education B C Nagesh said, “We have only recommended inclusion of several concepts invented by Indian experts much before the westerners did. We have not asked them to remove information on experts from other countries. Regarding language, we have only recommended that mother tongue be included as first language, and second and third language can be of students’ choice."