BENGALURU: The state government, which late Friday night said it was open to making additions and revisiting contentious content in revised school textbooks, is looking at ‘clip-ons’ (addenda) or insertions to include any fresh changes.
The chief minister’s office on Friday said it will suitably alter content related to Basavanna so as not to hurt sentiments. Meanwhile, the Karnataka Textbook Society said 79.7% of textbooks have been printed, 73.5% distributed and 67% of these have reached the block level.
On Saturday, CM Basavaraj Bommai said additional pages with changes will be sent and these can be inserted into textbooks. Senior officials in the department of primary and secondary education told STOI that with printing and distribution reaching the final stage and classes in full swing, a recall of textbooks was impossible.
“Instead, the new additions will be printed and distributed after the content is revisited,” a senior official said. The education department would not commit to a timeline for such revision. Officials said the process of revisiting controversial content will be the chief minister’s discretion.
Speaking to STOI, Rohith Chakrathirtha, head of the Karnataka Textbook Revision Committee, said that the entire textbook is not being revised. “We have followed the guidelines. Some had concerns about a few words here and there. Those will be changed. There will be no extensive revision to the recommendations we had made,” he added.
CM will decide on new panel: Official
The chief minister will take the final call whether there will be a new panel to revisit controversial content in textbooks prepared by the now-dissolved committee, and action will be initiated to carry those out. At this juncture, we don't have a clear picture on the timeline," an education department official said.
STOI's attempts to contact primary and secondary education minister BC Nagesh were futile.
Schools and activists were unhappy at the government's Friday decision and the solutions proposed. D Shashi Kumar, secretary, Association of Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools of Karnataka (KAMS), said: "The department says that more than 70% books have been distributed. But they have not reached schools yet. They've only reached the godowns. It will take at least 15-25 days for books to reach students, and that too after multiple visits to godowns by schools. This confusion will delay the process further."
He added that schools have had major issues with textbook distribution and that in the two pandemic years, the department was thrusting textbooks on them even while they did not need as many given the low enrolment.
"Now, we have around 60% of textbooks from those years in our godowns. Therefore, we did not order fresh stock. But as textbooks have changed, we don't know what to do with old textbooks and have not given enough orders for new ones," he said.
