JOIN USSchoolteachers from across the State will get an opportunity to give feedback on the existing State government school textbooks.
The recently constituted syllabus revision committee, headed by writer Baraguru Ramachandrappa, has taken the initiative to gather feedback from as many teachers as possible. For this purpose, the committee has sent out questionnaires to teachers, through several teachers’ associations.
The committee was constituted in May this year by the government, in the light of several complaints pertaining to errors in textbooks.
The syllabus revision committee will not only be looking at errors in the textbooks, but will also be taking up the task of revising some of the content. The government has put together 27 teams, with 185 subject experts for this purpose.
On Tuesday, a meeting was held of all the members of the committee. “Earlier, I had met those leading these 27 teams. This was the first time that a meeting was held of all the members,” said Ramachandrappa. Members who attended the meeting said that they needed more teacher representatives in the committee to take stock of ground realities faced by teachers in the classroom. The committee would work towards including more teachers, Ramachandrappa said.
The members also gave several suggestions for revamping the syllabus. Some of the common concerns expressed were that of uneven distribution of content in various chapters and that of factual errors. They also noted that there is no uniformity in the textbooks for government schools on the one hand and the aided and unaided schools on the other. The ‘Nali Kali’ book, which is taught in government schools, is not used by aided and unaided schools, Ramachandrappa said. “We have pointed this out to the minister too. He has asked us to give a note in this regard”. They would seek uniform textbooks for all children, the author said. Another issue that needed to be sorted out was repetitive content. Some chapters are taught in different classes with a few lines changed here and there.
The committee has sought time to do a detailed job and the textbooks are likely to ready for circulation for the academic year 2017-18.
“We have requested that we need six months at least. If there are small mistakes, we will immediately rectify them”. This whole month would be dedicated to consultations, Ramachandrappa said.