Union MoS for education clears air on controversy over ‘dropping’ of Darwin’s evolution theory

By Sukant Mohanty

BHUBANESWAR, APRIL 26: Union minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar on Wednesday tried to clear the air on hullabaloo over the ‘removal of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution’ from the science textbooks for Classes 9 and 10.

Mr Sarkar, who is now in Bhubaneswar for the 3rd Education Working Group (EdWG) meeting, said, “Who is saying this? There is nothing like this. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has given the curriculum framework to states and as per the procedure, they will give feedback. Giving such statements only through imagination is nothing right,”

The clarification is likely to allay fears that had cropped up in the minds of several intellectuals.

Earlier, around 1,800 scientists, teachers, educators and others had written an open letter criticising the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT) move to remove Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution from Classes 9 and 10 textbooks.

On April 20, the Breakthrough Science Society released a press statement which included the letter titled ‘An Appeal Against Exclusion of Evolution from Curriculum.’ The letter was signed by representatives of notable scientific institutions in the country.

As per sources, to reduce the burden on students, 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.