New Delhi: More than 1,800 scientists, teachers, educators, and science enthusiasts from across India have signed an open letter to NCERT condemning the removal of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution from the science textbooks for Classes 9 and 10.
The Breakthrough Science Society released a press statement on April 20 that includes the letter titled ‘An Appeal Against Exclusion of Evolution from Curriculum,’ which is signed by representatives of notable scientific institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and Indian Institute of Technology.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the government body mandated to advise the central and state governments on school education, had carried out a syllabus rationalisation exercise to reduce the burden on students after the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a result, chapter 9 of the science textbook, ‘Heredity and Evolution,’ was replaced by ‘Heredity.’ However, the scientific community believes that the removal of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is a ‘travesty of education,’ and students will be handicapped in their thought processes without exposure to this fundamental scientific discovery.
“The country’s scientific community is seriously dismayed to see that the theory of biological evolution, which was an integral part of the science syllabus at the 10th standard, has been dropped. It was first dropped as an interim measure for syllabus reduction during the Corona pandemic. But the NCERT document https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/BookletClass10.pdf states that it is dropped permanently as a step in ‘content rationalization’!” the open letter begins.
The letter further explained that the evolution process is crucial to developing a scientific temper and a rational worldview, and Darwin’s theory of natural selection educates students about the importance of critical thinking and the scientific method.
“The fact that the biological world is constantly changing, that evolution is a law-governed process that does not require divine intervention, and that humans have evolved from some species of ape have been the cornerstones of rational thinking ever since Darwin proposed his theory of natural selection,” the letter states.
