PM Narendra Modi is right that accountability must be fixed in India’s textbook system

• Textbooks, Democratic Institutions and the Responsibility of Educational Governance
• Pedagogical Responsibility and Institutional Accountability in School Education

“Accountability must be fixed,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while expressing his displeasure over the inclusion of a section on judicial corruption in a Class VIII Social Science textbook prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

As such, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's expression of his dissatisfaction with the situation, and the assertion of the requirement for accountability, is an indication of a fundamental principle of governance as it pertains to the establishment and maintenance of the intellectual development of students.

Lapses in the institutions that are responsible for educating the minds of students cannot be considered to be minor editing errors, but rather need to be treated with appropriate seriousness.

Many educational systems place a large amount of trust and responsibility on developing textbooks within their school systems. This trust can manifest itself as relationships between content (textbooks), developing students’ intellects and their value systems, and creating and enhancing students’ cognitive learning experience (i.e. what will they develop their value proposition about themselves and society through what they read in the classroom?).

Given that content developed and delivered through the classroom can have a powerful impact on creating student perceptions about organizations and society, then there is a great deal of academic rigor, institutional accountability, and administrative diligence that must go into developing and publishing school textbooks.

Unfortunately, the recent controversy over the 8th Grade Social Studies National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook raises serious questions concerning the validity and efficacy of the country’s national educational oversight systems and their systematic processes to review and approve content. The inclusion of content that discusses judicial corruption to students who are not yet adolescents has caused many observers to question how such material was able to get through the established layers of review and approval processes.

The question of accountability and how important it is for students in Class 8 to learn about democratic institutions is at the centre of this episode. Students in this age group are still very young in their development of understanding democratic institutions. When they are introduced to civic signposts (structures) early in their civic participation and learning about democracy, it sets a foundation for building comprehension and faith in constitutional government and all of the components that are part of supporting democratic rule.

Institutional disputes that are both complex and sensitive have a place in the academic world; however, introducing this content into school texts without providing the appropriate contextual framework will raise legitimate pedagogical concerns about the use of said content.

Finally, this situation creates heightened scrutiny on the Ministry of Education's responsibilities to provide appropriate oversight of educational institutions such as NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), as they fall under the general regulatory structure and the general supervision of the Ministry of Education. While NCERT and other educational institutions have a measure of independence and self-governance with respect to policy matters affecting their institutions, the Ministry of Education is held primarily responsible for ensuring that national education standards are met.

Dharmendra Pradhan has an important role as the Minister of Education in relation to this issue. The key point is: How did this type of material get by the many levels of review required before creating a textbook?

The NCERT produces textbooks as part of a very structured way of doing things. The textbook will be written by a group of authors based on the direction of an academic committee- a group of people with subject area expertise- that is responsible for reviewing the book before being approved by institutions. If the sections included in the final printed versions of the textbooks had many levels of review, then these levels would have been unable to identify an error, or the error was not considered significant enough to stop printing.

The content is not the only thing that will be cause for concern as a result, but also how each of the layers of review performed. Were the people on the review committees performing their jobs in a professional manner? Did review boards perform their work with the necessary academic rigor? Or did the review committees become so accustomed to functioning in an administrative manner that they do not provide a comprehensive review?

Another question that must be considered is the financial aspect of this situation. The cost to print (common sized books) vast amounts of textbooks to be used in schools costs a large amount of tax payer dollars. When these materials are pulled from use and returned to the publisher, who will absorb any costs associated with these materials that are no longer being used in schools?

The money paid by tax payers could have been used correctly if mistakes made in educational materials were caught/identified earlier - instead of waiting until the mistakes had been identified after the books had been sent/printed and existing copies from before any corrections were made still on the streets. This puts a lot more responsibility on those who created/wrote/edited books to bear the cost of any additional purchases by the school board that may be deemed by the student population to have been wasted.

It is also very important to remember that the authors/contributors involved in the development of all textbooks used by students in our schools should understand the scope of their involvement (responsibility). Their work impacts many (millions) due to the number of students who use their contributions. Therefore, as such they must demonstrate care in the manner with which they present the material to students.

Also very important, particularly in the context of schools discussing various forms of government with their students (the judiciary, the legislative, and the executive constitute three major branches of the federal government of India), is that the information discusses how to discuss and handle the federal government of India should be treated within the context of the balancing act necessary to discuss a subject (the branch of the government) and to provide factual and unbiased discussions about the branches of government in concern before students that constitute a significant portion of the population in most states.

In addition, this particular situation has created a need for immediate improvement in the methods and procedures by which the development of instructional materials as textbooks occurs. Through the addition of more participants in the development of the instructional materials as textbooks, increased transparency, increasing the number of reviews of developed instructional materials as textbooks, and additional time allocated for developing, reviewing and editing materials to become instructional materials will assist with ensuring that more books will reflect the most recent versions of the instructional material.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strong and consistent position calling for accountability sends an important institutional message about educational governance. Education governance cannot allow for negligence or careless oversight of student intellectual development.

This moment should provide a chance for the education ministry and affiliated institutions to rethink their structures and processes. They must accompany regrets about how this occurred with structural changes to help ensure that processes governing textbook preparation are strengthened to prevent similar lapses in the future.

The Indian education system is tasked with developing new generations of citizens and this requires not just clearly defined academic standards, but well-defined processes of accountability from educational leaders. The emergence of issues like these should remind policymakers in educational decision-making and textbook development that continuing vigilance, seriousness, and care should characterise all stages of educational policymaking and development of educational resources.

(Author is Educationist and Chairman of Centre for NaMo Studies Trust. Email: modistudies@gmail.com )