Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash.
Material on evolution was removed from grade 9 and 10 textbooks by India's National Council of Education Research and Training, as the government "pursues a Hindu supremacist agenda," according to a report from Al Jazeera (April 13, 2023).
Chapters on evolution were previously included in these textbooks. "Now, millions of school students will not know who Darwin was or what his theory says — unless they opt for biology in Class 11 and Class 12."
Krishna Kumar, who previously headed NCERT, told Al Jazeera, "No one knows the full extent of deletions from the textbooks. Can you imagine a student passing 10th standard without knowing who Darwin was?"
"NCERT textbooks are prescribed by more than 24,000 schools affiliated with India's Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), with tens of millions of students. ... Apart from that, at least 19 school boards in 14 Indian states also use NCERT books in classrooms."
In a 2019-2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of Indians (and 64 percent of Americans) preferred "Humans and other living things have evolved over time" to "Humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."
