The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has reconstituted the team tasked with developing new political science textbooks for Classes 11 and 12, with its mandate including the integration of “cultural rootedness”, Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), equity and inclusion, value education and educational technology.
The 20-member Textbook Development Team (TDT), notified on August 14, includes at least four members with documented links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its student affiliate Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), or Sangh-affiliated organisations.
It has been asked to complete the Class 11 textbook by November 30 this year and the Class 12 textbook by July 30, 2027, in line with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023. ABVP records identify him as its joint state organising secretary for Maharashtra in 2014. The team will be headed by academic and political analyst Sandeep Shastri, vice-president of Nitte (deemed to be a university), Bengaluru. Among the members is Yadunath Deshpande, senior consultant with the ministry of education and a member of the National Syllabus and Teaching-Learning Material Committee (NSTC). Ravi Rameshchandra Shukla, associate professor at JNU’s Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, has served on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Democratic Governance, published by the Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership, which operates under the RSS-affiliated Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini. JNU’s profile records his research interests in culture and nationalism. The team also includes academics and educators from JNU, Delhi University, National Law University Delhi, Chanakya University, National University of Study and Research in Law, Jindal Global Law School, Pondicherry University, Utkal University and IGNOU. A Textbook Core Group comprising members of the NSTC and the National Curriculum Framework Oversight Committee will periodically review progress and provide feedback on draft chapters.
The notification, issued by NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani, says the team is being constituted “with a view to further strengthen and streamline” development of the textbooks and related teaching-learning material. The notification says the team will finalise syllabi and develop corresponding teaching-learning material, including the two textbooks, while ensuring linkages with other secondary-stage textbooks. It will take guidance from curricular area groups on social science, languages, IKS, environmental education, innovative pedagogy and teaching-learning material, and ensure interdisciplinarity and “the integration of multilingual perspectives”. Each textbook will also be reviewed for integration of themes including “cultural rootedness, Indian Knowledge Systems, inclusion, educational technology, assessment, etc.”
