In a statement, the council rationalized the reduction by stating they wanted to reduce the content load on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others. These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.
This is what the incoming Trump administration wants to do to the US.
Thats religion for you.
Okay the evolution part, though stupid, is religious fundie par for the course. But middle school geometry? Are they fucking retarded?
Yes.
Imagine not knowing the fucking Pythagorean Theorem. Imagine not being able to do basic trigonometry, a cornerstone of physics.
Hell, I used it to figure out the optimal viewing angle when mounting my TV on the wall.
Short answer, yes.
In 2018, Indian minister for higher education Satyapal Singh baffled the scientific community by demanding that the theory of evolution be removed from school curriculum becaue “no one ever saw an ape turning into a human being.” Other political leaders from the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party came to his defense on social media.
That statement alone speaks to his fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution is. Stupid people not knowing a subject, understanding their entirely flawed guess is wrong (I agree with them there) yet not realizing WHY they’re wrong, then barring it because how ridiculous what they think it is sounds. Dunning something something Kruger something. I’m 100% for teaching kids that gorillas just dont turn into humans and actually teach them what evolution means.
Everyone knows different dog breeds were invented by god in the 18th century
Clearly that man needed to be taught more about evolution when he was in school.
The thing is, evolution makes sense, so long as you aren’t going to outright reject the idea that humans aren’t a different category of thing from the rest of Animalia. It gets weird when you get deep enough to see that we share an ancestor with plants and bacteria and even archaea, but we have enough evidence that by the time you’re being asked to understand that fact you can see that line and understand how photosynthetic microbes slowly built new systems while other microbes ate the remains of them before slowly bit by bit developing new traits to differentiate and fill niches.
They don’t want to think of themselves as such, because it’s a form of humility to understand that you evolved from a worm that just happened to have a particularly effective means of transmitting signals along the course of its body. They want to think their gods made them to rule nature.
PEOPLE FALLING FOR THIS SHIT AGAIN IS INSANE !
They haven’t removed the Pythagorean theorem, it seems to be taught in lower grades. This is Pythagorean theorem for the similarity of triangles, which was dropped to remove burden during pandemic.
Periodic tables and evolution are moved to one or two grade higher. NOT DROPPED.
There you go. Now you have the facts. Enjoy the rest of your day 🫡
What the hell are you talking about!? It says in the article that these three subjects have been moved out of mandatory learning.
Meaning that most Indian students won’t understand the basic principles of evolution or the most simple understanding of the composition of elements.
Not considering either of these three to be essential mandatory learning is insane.
The syllabus includes of related topics way before in 6th or 7th grade. Some of them are often repeated (may be even intentionally). They learn about elements and their composition in 7th or 8th grade. After having all that, if student is inclined to it they learn more in 11th and 12th grades. Most of students follow up to 12th in India. If you are so concerned go check the textbooks yourself - https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php
Although I don’t suppose most people won’t do that because why put the effort to understand things when you can spew dumb opinions around ?
The reason the topics were rationalised to improve remote learning and reduce burden on students during exams in a country where suicide rates among students due to exams and societal pressures is a real concern.
The way people have been reacting to this is as if students coming out of school are dumb fucks with no scientific knowledge. I bet the ones commenting here doesn’t even know half of what those students know.
Again, quoting the article, it says that many students (although maybe not most) will graduate without an understanding of these three subjects.
How can that be considered a positive, and what’s even more; acceptable?!
It says in the post that 10th grade is the last mandatory grade, so this means many students will miss out on learning about evolution, no?
Correct. After 10th grade, you can choose a “stream” (course). You can choose between science, commerce, or humanities. What’s worse is that each stream has multiple branches, and biology is not included in all the branches. So if you were to choose computer science branch in the science stream, you will not take any biology classes.
So a vast majority of students would never learn about some very important scientific concepts if this was implemented, but I’m not sure if they reversed this decision or not.
These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.
I know nothing of India’s education system. Does this mean it’s in an optional class now or is this totally wrong?
as said below, that’s the last mandatory grade
This is Pythagorean theorem for the similarity of triangles
could you source that?
See for yourself in old textbook (page 144)
https://archive.org/details/mathematics-textbook-class-10-2006-ncert/page/144/mode/2up
Thanks for that. I hate people who leave out important information and context. They are evil.
Except this comment seems to leave out that mandatory science education stops in India at 10th grade, so the periodic table and evolution will not be taught to Indian students unless they pursue higher grades of education.
Edit: It appears all of this is also moot, since a comment below pointed out that these things have been added back into the curriculum:
What else to expect from a RW govt who thinks hindu religious scriptures have all the knowledge
