As part of the revamped curriculum for Tamil Nadu State Board schools, textbooks for Classes 6, 9 and 11 no longer have the abbreviations B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) to denote the period. B.P. (Before Present), B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) are the abbreviations used in the English textbooks and the translations for the same have been used in the Tamil language textbooks.
“The use of B.C.E. and C.E. has been recorded since 1708. The NCERT books which are in circulation since 2007 too have the use of B.C.E. and C.E. Since the abbreviations are being increasingly used, it was incorporated into the new curriculum and has been featured in the new textbooks prepared keeping with the revised curriculum,” said T. Udhayachandran, Secretary, Curriculum Development, Tamil Nadu School Education Department.
The usage of the abbreviations is becoming increasingly common in textbooks and scientific journals. Mr. Udhayachandran said that the textbooks for the following year for those classes which will have a revamped syllabus too will have these abbreviations.
Information box
The first unit of the Class 6 textbook titled ‘What is history’, has an information box which speaks about the B.C.E. and C.E. dating system and how it is calculated.
Similarly, in the NCERT social science textbooks, which are framed keeping with the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework, the dating system is used.
In 2006, the then VCK legislator D. Ravikumar had put forth a demand seeking a dating system which was more secular.
“The usage of C.E. and B.C.E. has been commonly used since the beginning of the 20th century, but hadn’t found many takers in India. When it began to be used here, I had made a demand in the Legislative Assembly for this to be incorporated in the textbooks to make it more secular,” he said.
Mr. Ravikumar called the incorporation of the new dating system a good beginning.
