‘Broken Away From Old Poverty’: Sanjeev Sanyal Praises NCERT’s Revised Class 7 Books

Last Updated:June 11, 2025, 15:02 IST

Sanjeev Sanyal said that the older version of the NCERT class 7 textbooks released in 2012 was “deliberately designed for povertarian narratives.”

The new social science textbooks created by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have moved away from the traditional narratives of poverty and colonisation, according to Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PM-EAC) and chairperson of NCERT’s Curricular Area Group Economics. He also added that the older version released in 2012 was “deliberately designed for povertarian narratives.”

“The new NCERT textbooks for class VII are out. Below are images of the integrated social science textbook (history, economics, geography etc). Note that the images are clear and in colour, the economics section teach ideas using modern examples, and history tries to focus on storytelling rather than dates. I am sure these too will be improved with iterations but we have broken away from old poverty and gratefully colonised narrative,” Sanyal posted on microblogging platform X.

“The class VI were published last year, so the same cohort will take up these in class VII. Now will work on class VIII. I have primarily looked at the economics segment where the old textbooks (from 2012) were deliberately designed for povertarian narratives ….. images of schools from partition refugee schools, all technology was steam engines, the chapter on markets was about how fair price shops and how shopkeepers were “hoarding”, and chapter on finance was all about women’s self help groups,” he added.

Sanyal who revises NCERT’s economics/finance/entrepreneurship textbooks added that work is underway to modify the class 8 books.

The new NCERT class 7 book features a chapter ‘From Barter to Money’ that deals the barter system, history of money, and the coinage systems during the Chalukyas and Cholas. The chapter also discusses the use of digital money, including net banking and the United Payments Interface. The second chapter titled ‘Understanding Markets’ contains a section on Karnataka’s historical Hampi Bazaar, and explains how modern markets operate.

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