Controversial part of Class X book to be removed

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The first meeting of the reconstituted curriculum committee here on Tuesday decided to remove the controversial part from the history portion of the Social Science textbook for Class X.The expert committee and the curriculum sub-committee have been assigned to look into the revision of many chapters in the history textbooks for Classes V, VII, VIII and X.The meeting also decided to revise the textbooks for higher secondary next year.The controversial part refers to the Renaissance period in the chapter ‘rise of the new world’ in Class X Social Science textbook which was alleged to have some derogatory references about the Church. In the history part of other classes, many of the corrections are related to social organisations. Some of them had complained against many of the historical parts in the textbooks such as the part in which the influence of Chattambi Swamy and Vaikunda Swamy on Sree Narayana Guru is mentioned.The sub-committee, which would be constituted in a couple of days, would look into the revisions and submit a report. The decision to revise the controversial portions was approved with a dissent note from KSTA member M Shajahan, general secretary of pro-CPM KSTA.The KSTA opined that revisions in the history part must be made by historians and not by the political committees.Shajahan said that the government was kneeling before the demands of community organisations and added that school teachers would not teach the revised portions if they are a distortion of history.