Teachers' Body Slams NCERT for Removing Chapters on Climate Change From Syllabi

The TACC said that the actions and interventions of young people are very important to combat climate change.

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(Photo: Shruti Mathur/The Quint)

A teachers' body released a statement on Wednesday, 6 July, slamming the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for removing certain chapters on climate change from the school syllabi.

"We in Teachers Against the Climate Crisis (TACC) are deeply dismayed by the many recent changes to school syllabi by the NCERT," the organisation said.

"Among these, and directly related to an entire chapter on the Greenhouse Effect from the Class 11 Geography syllabus, an entire chapter on Weather, Climate, Weather Systems and Water from the Class 7 syllabus, and information about the Indian Monsoon from the Class 9 syllabus," the TACC asserted.

'Efforts of Young People Essential To Combat Climate Change'

While it acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a "disruption to regular learning schedules," and that the NCERT seeks to reduce the workload of students by culling material that overlaps with similar material or is "irrelevant in the present context," the TACC stated that climate change science, Indian monsoons, and deleted chapters on other issues are fundamental to learning.

"It is extremely important that senior school students all over India are conveyed the essence of such updated information in an accessible, easy-to-understand manner," the teachers' body said.

It also emphasised that students in India and across the world were deeply concerned about issues related to environmental degradation, adding that the actions and interventions of young people are very important to combat climate change.

"This action needs to be predicated upon systematic knowledge of the reality of climate change, its causes, and its enormous reach. Students need to understand the complexity of the climate crisis if they are to respond and engage intelligently with it. In recent years, this engagement has typically begun in the classroom," the TACC statement read.