NCERT Removes Periodic Table From Class 10 Textbooks

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has courted controversy by removing the periodic table from Class 10 textbooks as well.

So now, class 10 students will no longer receive education on critical scientific topics such as evolution, the periodic table of elements, sources of energy, and environmental sustainability.

According to the NCERT, books have been rationalised due to overlapping of similar content in other subject areas in the same class, the inclusion of similar content in lower and higher classes in the same subject, difficulty level, irrelevant content and to provide easily accessible and self-learnable content.

Experts have expressed concerns about the long-term impact of omitting these crucial subjects from the syllabus.

Last month, dropping several topics and portions from the NCERT textbooks triggered a controversy with the Opposition blaming the Centre of whitewashing with vengeance.

Among the references that were dropped from the class 12 history textbook were certain portions on Mahatma Gandhi and how his pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists, and a ban on the RSS.

Gandhiji's death had a magical effect on the communal situation in the country, Gandhi's pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists, and Organisations like RSS were banned for some time among the portions deleted from the textbook.

The portions referring to the Gujarat riots were also dropped from the class 11 sociology textbook, months after NCERT removed the reference to the 2022 communal violence in two class 12 textbooks.