The Education Minister M.A. Baby announced on 17 July 2008 that the curriculum committee of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has resolved to bring about some changes in the Social Science textbook for Class VII. These are as under:-

a) Change the title of the controversial lesson "Mathamillatha Jeevan" (Jeevan without religion) to "Viswasa Swathantriyam" (Freedom of Belief)

b) The names of the boy and his parents (Jeevan, Lakshmikutty and Anwar Rasheed) in the lesson have been dropped and replaced with references to "boy" and "parents" in the revised version.

c) The portion of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Will (asking that no religious rituals be carried out on his death) that appears alongside the lesson, has been replaced by a portion of a speech on secularism made by Nehru in 1961.

d) The lesson will have a pointer to what the Constitution says about secularism

e) The revised lesson will also feature the sayings of Sree Narayana Guru on religion and harmony (apart from similar quotes from Mahabharata, Bible, Mohammed Nabi and Guru Nanak.

f) Along with the 1924 admission register of the Panthalloor government lower primary school given in the textbook, a copy of the admission register of either 2004 or 2005 will be given, so that students can make a comparative analysis of the changes that have taken place in Kerala vis-a-vis access to education for various sections of the population.

These decisions of the curriculum committee were based on the recommendations in the interim report of the K.N. Panikkar Committee appointed to look into complaints against newly introduced textbooks in the State’s schools.

Anand

lone_crusader,

Please read my last blog, "Congress Party and Pseudo Secularism" to understand the context. I would love to hear your views on the text book -- particularly, critical views.

As Keshav said, the approach of the text book is "startling" to many of us used to conventional text books. Which is why this blog....

Anand

Keshav,

Thanks for visiting the blog, and also for confirming that you could view the presentation, full screen. Sampath, any success?

A bit disappointed that you chose to reserve your comments! You will notice that in this blog, I too presented the text book with annotations, but without my views. But I would look forward to differing perceptions on this by the readers -- and a vigorous and healthy discussion...

Anand

          what is it? Explain?

Hi Anand,

I could view it perfectly.
As for the contents, I'll reserve my comments... ... it is startling, to say the least

cheers,

Keshav

Can others view full screen? Any one else faced problems?

Anand

Sampath,

Did you try clicking on the icon (box with four arrows pointing diagonally outwards) at the bottom right? It is important that you view this full screen, as the font is otherwise too small.

When you click the icon (for full screen) a new window is expected to open. Please check if this happened. Which is the browser that you use? I have checked this with Firefox and Internet Explorer -- and this works fine in both these.
Please tell me if you still have problems...

Anand

deara anand,
 i am not able get the 
fulls screen to view it...