More than 250 teachers and academicians have submitted applications as on Saturday as resource persons to take part in writing textbooks for the revised State Board syllabus following a notification issued by the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) on June 13. Among the applicants are teachers and academicians from Singapore, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.
In May, the State government announced a schedule for rolling out a revised syllabus for all classes in phases.
Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan had said the new syllabus would be equivalent to or better than the CBSE syllabus.
For the 2018-19 academic year, the new syllabus for classes 1,6,9 and 11 will be rolled out. Officials from the Education Department said the government was keen on working on the syllabus for higher secondary classes first.
Seminar
“Once the application process for resource persons to frame the new syllabus and write the textbooks are done, a comprehensive seminar will be held where experts from across the country will be roped in. Apart from having subject-oriented sessions, focus will be given on social issues and gender issues and we hope to rope in historians, activists and academicians who will look at the content,” said T. Udhayachandran, Secretary of the School Education Department.
Teachers interested in textbook writing can apply till June 23 on the SCERT website. In a circular earlier this month, the department said preference would be to resource persons with a good knowledge of the various education reforms such as the New Education Policy (Draft) 2017-18 and the Kothari Commission report.
Describing the process of developing textbooks as a movement of sorts, Mr. Udhayachandran said: the department had decided to come up with an application process and make it more professional as many educationalists, academicians, and teachers had expressed interest to be a part of the process.
“We hope to rope in illustrators, artists and experts in typography to give help us make the books look visually appealing as well.” As a part of this process, textbooks of various State boards had been sourced for research.
