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India’s unchecked textbooks racket

EducationWorld January 05 | EducationWorld
The dimensions of post-independence India’s open, continuous and unchecked textbooks publishing rackets have recently come to light following the miraculous defeat of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in the general election held last March. Srinidhi Raghavendra reports The class VII Marathi-medium social science textbook published by Karnataka’s directorate of textbooks, a subsidiary of the department of state educational research and training (dsert), features a map which shows Pakistan as an island in the Arabian sea, China as part of India and depicts Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh as island nations. According to the preface of intermediate general english by Seema Wilson Dass prescribed for school-leaving class XII students of the Uttar Pradesh state examination board, this text is “a book which is hoped to serve as a guide for speaking and writing good and idiomatic English (but) could not be made completely descriptive”. Yuvabharati — a coursebook in English published by the Maharashtra state board of secondary and higher secondary education for class XII students introduces the subject of environment thus: “when we use the word environment, what do we mean? first of all, we mean the physical surroundings of living things. for example, some animals live in water, others live in forests or in sand. secondly, we mean the chemicals in those surroundings, the salt in sea water, for example…” In the quintessential republic of rackets renowned globally for the mind-boggling multiplicity and sheer scale of its swindles, it is arguably post-independence India’s longest-running and most under-publicised scam — textbooks publishing. Given that the total number of school and university students in the 29 states and four Union territories which constitute the Union of India aggregates a staggering 150 million at any point of time, and assuming that each student purchases or is granted five textbooks valued at a modest average price of Rs.15 annually, the estimated national expenditure on textbooks is a massive Rs. 1,125 crore per year. Inevitably this pot of gold at the end of the false rainbow which promises quality education for all, has attracted the attention of printers, publishers and buccaneers across the country who discern easy pickings in the perpetually expanding textbooks publishing business. With over 90 percent of primary and secondary schools and higher education institutions controlled by officials and educrats of the Union and state governments who have perfected corruption and kickbacks into a fine art, bagging textbook writing, printing and publishing contracts for the captive government schools and college markets is a cinch for the growing number of small-time, fly-by-night authors, printers and publishers who have contributed heavily to dumbing down Indian education to rock-bottom depths. And tragically, neither the nation’s politicians, bureaucrats, educationists nor intellectuals who typically enroll their children in quality-conscious private schools, seem to care a jot that contemporary India’s flourishing textbooks racket damages the career prospects, indeed the very lives of the most vulnerable segment of society — children of the poor. The dimensions of post-independence India’s open, continuous and unchecked textbooks publishing rackets have recently come to light following the miraculous defeat of the BJP-led
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