New textbooks for Indian school students

There is much criticism of the widely practiced “rote” learning; on the mechanical one-way teaching methods of teachers; on the passivity of the student; on the overinflated syllabi; and on the overwhelming importance given to exams. It is a major challenge to introduce changes to a system that has persisted for long, and which affects millions of children and teachers in all corners of India.

The Indian Government is well aware of this gigantic task and has created various task groups to propose changes to the system. Michel Danino, a former Aurovilian and presently member of the Auroville International Advisory Council, is actively involved in one of these task groups. For over two decades, Michel, who is also guest professor at IIT Gandhinagar (Gujarat), has contributed to attempts to reform school education, including the development of a renewed educational vision, an overhaul of the educational programmes, and the creation of new textbooks that hope to reflect the new vision. Here he elaborates on his work.

In 2020, a new National Education Policy (NEP) was published. It was the basis for a new approach to education. It concerned not only school education at all levels but also higher education. It’s a very broad document, but, as I often say, a magnificent car without wheels. Some people here and there were inspired by it, but there was no clear mechanism for putting the new approach into practice. This document was also supposed to streamline the complex and enormous mass of the numerous educational institutions in India.

The National Curriculum Framework for School Education

Since 2021, I have been part of a committee called “National Steering Committee” and I participated in the development of a document titled the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE). This 600-page document, published in 2023, aims precisely to put this national policy into practice at the school level. It includes all sorts of practical aspects without ever losing sight of the vision formulated and the principles set out in 2020. Of course, this vision of education was based on a number of educational experiences, such as those of the Krishnamurti Foundation and, of course, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram’s Free Progress School (both of which are in fact cited in the document). In short, it is a schooling where the student ceases to be a passive receiver, ceases to be submerged under a mountain of disparate information, facts, dates, details to be learned by heart for the most part; the student becomes a full participant. It is an education that emphasises fundamental ideas, principles, or concepts, whether in social science, maths, art or science, with a much greater emphasis than previously on understanding and critical thinking. The examples or information—kept to a minimum—are chosen, as much as possible, to illustrate these basic ideas. We are also inspired by a great precept from Sri Aurobindo: to go from the near to the far, that is to say, to take as a starting point the world of the student. Finally, we are in India, and great educational visionaries, such as Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, Coomaraswamy, among others, have insisted that India’s national education must have an Indian basis. This was not previously the case: until now, the implicit message of school education was that the only useful knowledge came from the West. There will therefore be a relocation to an Indian basis, which doesn’t mean that modern knowledge will be discarded, of course, but that, whenever possible, the Indian vision or approach will be presented.

Easy to say, but not always easy to achieve! Of course, in certain fields such as literature, the arts, or mathematics, areas extremely rich in classical India, it is relatively feasible, but in other fields such as the sciences or social science, how can it be applied? We know that this new approach was already partially advocated in the New Education Policy of 1986, whose architect was Kireet Joshi. There was also a National Curriculum Framework in 2005 which went in this direction, but which never really picked up in practice; the specific Indian contribution was limited to a few small inserts here and there, scattered and optional. Now, we are trying to integrate these contributions into the main text, as an integral part of the subject in question. In certain fields such as political science for example, it is entirely legitimate to speak of a vision specific to India, for example the principles set out in the Arthashastra(1). With transitions, of course: in this specific case, we first introduce some general principles of contemporary political structures (many young Indians, even “educated” ones, have no idea what an electoral constituency is!), but then it’s important to talk about the political and social organisation of ancient India, to show that certain ideas and practices are thousands of years old.

My participation: creating textbooks of social sciences

How did I gradually become involved in this work? I had participated in several educational experiments over the past twenty years, such as a survey of 11,000 schoolchildren and a very detailed special course on India’s cultural heritage for the secondary level. Then, four years ago, I was drawn into this National Steering Committee, where I participated in the development of the National Curriculum Framework for School Education, published in 2023. Particularly in certain chapters.

At this point, I was asked to take responsibility for textbooks of social science — a complex and delicate discipline in India, as it always gives rise to numerous historical, social, and other controversies. The aim was to avoid, on the one hand, the perspective of nationalist enthusiasts with often very limited views, and on the other, to avoid falling back into the old system which, inheriting colonial views on India, always ended up painting a dark portrait of Indian society with, for example, a constant emphasis on discrimination caused by caste. It is said that mountains are defined by their peaks more than by their valleys. Of course, these valleys must be noted, and there is no question of hiding anything. To continue with this example of caste, we will see that the curriculum for grades 6 to 8 will discuss them in several chapters. But in previous textbooks, the fundamental error (which many historians have made, moreover) confused the caste system as it originally existed with the current system. Yet, numerous recent studies have demonstrated that there is a huge difference between the two. The old system was much more fluid, for example, while the current system is the product of a dual rigidification: that imposed by the colonial powers (whose censuses declared all communities or jatis to be as many castes) and that created by the quota system for lower castes implemented by independent India. Discrimination is undeniable, especially in the last two or three centuries, but it is also a system that, in ancient times, effectively supported India’s economic power. Instead of presenting the caste system as an absolute evil, we will first try to understand its complexities and evolution, class by class. The same is true of other subjects, which must reflect the infinite complexity of India and avoid any simplistic judgments or stereotypes.

We have therefore formed several groups whose task is to develop new syllabi based on the National Education Policy, and to create appropriate teaching materials for science, math, social science, art, physical education, and vocational education (the last three are now separate subjects).

What I have often emphasised is that we must not use students’ minds as an ideological battlefield. We have received many suggestions, both from our group and from external experts, and have always decided on them as objectively as possible. If, for example, we are told that we should teach that the Mahabharata was written in the 2nd millennium BC, well, no, because there is sufficient evidence that it was written down from 300 or 400 BC onward.

The absence of political pressure

I’ve sometimes been asked if we were subjected to political pressure. I honestly answered: absolutely not. It’s well known that I’ve always tried to promote the deeper values of Indian culture, to give space to Indian knowledge systems, but it’s also accepted that I’m not a political animal, that I keep my distance from the political world. In any case, our team worked with complete freedom, accepting many useful suggestions and rejecting almost as many.

This work—a social science textbook for the 6th grade, to begin with—had to be completed in a very short time, around five months. It must be said that we were working on the syllabi and the textbook at the same time, because everything was new and we had to determine at what stage of schooling it was appropriate to introduce this or that topic. Especially since another fundamental principle of this new philosophy of education is precisely interdisciplinarity. It was therefore essential to ensure that it was integrated into the development of the syllabi from start to finish. Hence the constant back-and-forth: the book was revised as the syllabus was refined. We also made every effort to minimise the text itself and to use visual aids such as drawings, photos, maps, diagrams, etc. as much as possible. Although somewhat delayed, this textbook and those for the other core subjects were finally printed in July 2024 in a few lakhs of copies, in English but with a Hindi translation coming very soon.(2)

We are now trying to form new teams to work on the textbooks for the following years, starting with Grade 7. Obviously, there hasn’t been enough time to prepare teachers for the new approach; it will take them several years to fully absorb it. Until now, teachers in India have too often been content to simply repeat the textbook; now they are asked to assume their full role so that, gradually, the textbook loses its importance, which cannot happen overnight. Moreover, thousands of schools in remote corners of India have little access to anything other than textbooks, hence the importance of having quality books.

This effort to fundamentally reform school education in India therefore seems well under way, but it can only be a long-term endeavour.