Karnataka govt likely to oppose NCERT's 'Bharat' proposal

Bengaluru: The state government is likely to pass a resolution rejecting the proposal made by an NCERT panel to replace 'India' with 'Bharat' in school textbooks, with School Education & Literacy Minister Madhu Bangarappa saying the move has a political motive.

A decision on this is expected at a meeting scheduled on November 2.

Speaking to DH, Madhu said: "We are meeting on November 2. We will discuss and take a decision."  

Calling the proposal made by the National Council for Education Research and Training as "unnecessary", Madhu said it "would distract students and affect the quality of education".

School textbooks in Karnataka for grades 1 to 10 are on par with NCERT, which is an autonomous body that advises the Centre on school education.

Textbooks for Grades 9 and 10, especially, are mostly based on NCERT. In Grades 11 and 12, the state has adopted the NCERT syllabus for Science and Commerce.

Opposing the proposal, D Shashi Kumar, General Secretary of the Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said, "This is politically driven. This will create unnecessary confusion among the stakeholders."

VP Niranjanaradhya, a development educationist, said the move is unconstitutional.

"It looks like the NCERT has no basic knowledge about the Constitution. We demand the suspension of historian CI Issac, the head of the committee which recommended this change, and reject all the recommendations of the committee and also to annul the committee," he said.