Will bring back climate change chapters to school books: Education minister

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said the Centre will bring back the climate change chapters, which were dropped from school textbooks.

“We have to include such elements in our universities and education system so that we can deal with the challenges of climate change and achieve sustainable development goals,” Pradhan said.

He was speaking during a 3-day education conclave organised by the ministry. Pradhan was talking about the changes that the National Education Policy 2020 will bring as it is being rolled out.

Teachers' group had raised objections to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) dropping topics related to weather and climate change in classes 6 to 12.

A statement released by educators fighting climate change, Teachers Against the Climate Crisis, urged the NCERT to undo the changes. “Students all over the world have been deeply concerned with the drastic changes wrought by environmental degradation — of which climate change is an example… Students need to understand the complexity of climate crisis...to respond and engage intelligently with it,” the statement read.

To reduce the academic load on students after the Covid pandemic, the NCERT has made changes in syllabuses for students in classes VI to XII. Over 30 per cent of the syllabus has been dropped.

In the conclave, Pradhan further said that by allowing for education in Indian languages in the NEP 2020, a large section of kids will be connected to the education system. “For a long time, the system worked to end our culture, our guru-shishya tradition and education system. From the destruction of the Taxila in the fifth century to the destruction of the Indian teaching methods by Macaulay, our languages, knowledge systems and culture were destroyed,” Pradhan said.