NCERT drops chapters on democracy, periodic table from class 10 textbooks – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Thursday said it has dropped chapters on Periodic Classification of Element, Democracy, political parties (full page) and Challenges to Democracy from class 10 textbooks “to reduce the content load on students in view of the Covid pandemic”.
The three topics deleted from the science textbook are Periodic Classification of Elements, Sources of Energy and Sustainable Management of Natural resources.
In the Social Studies textbook, three chapters from Democratic Politics-1 have been dropped including Popular Struggles and Movements, Political Parties and Challenges to Democracy.
Students can still learn about these subjects, but only if they opt for the relevant subject in class 11 and 12.

The NCERT also recently decided to remove the Theory of Biological Evolution from the class 10 curriculum. The move was widely criticised by experts.
The NCERT had said that the decision to cut chapters was taken as it was “imperative to reduce the load on students in light of the coronavirus pandemic”.
“Difficulty level, overlapping content, and content irrelevant in the present context” are some of the reasons listed by NCERT for dropping these chapters from the curriculum.
Some other topics that have already been axed citing the need for reducing content-load include chapters on Fibre and Fabrics in classes VI, VII and VIII, and a chapter in the history textbook of class VI that had a reference to Mahatma Gandhi and the charkha.
A chapter in the class IX science textbook ‘Why do we fall ill’, has also been deleted.
The chapter introduces students to viruses and air-borne diseases such as Covid-19.