The process of revising the Samacheer Kalvi textbooks, particularly to make them error-free, has begun. In the first part of the project that was completed recently over 40,000 teachers from government and private schools across the State were involved.
The revision follows criticism from stakeholders that the books printed this year had glaring errors. The Directorate of Teacher Education Research and Training (DTERT) roped in more than 40,000 teachers for reviewing textbooks, much more than the number of teachers involved in the previous years. The work involved discussing addition and deletion of content, pointing out syntax errors, spelling mistakes, suggesting new activities and appropriate content as per the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) pattern that would come into practice from the next academic year for classes I to VIII.
“Our larger aim is to bring out error-free textbooks,” said K.Devarajan, Director, DTERT. The process began last month and teachers and students of all 32 districts were involved. For classes I to V, 23 groups were involved in revising each of the subject books in every district, while classes VI to VIII and IX and X, nine groups each were involved. Each of these groups had 50 members, which comprised 10 government school teachers, 30 private school teachers including those from CBSE schools and 10 students each from every class concerned.
“All the books are being re-written but the content will remain the same,” said Mr. Devarajan, adding that suggestions given by the groups in the districts are complete . Each of the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) are now working on a subject to incorporate the suggestions. For instance, DIET in the city is finalising content for English for classes I to X..
The exercise is expected to be completed by the end of December. Later content would be divided based on the trimester pattern to then be sent to the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation for printing.
Those keen on sending feedback about the books can email dtert.tn@nic.in
