Bengaluru, July 13, 2022: Karnataka Minister of School Education and Literacy B C Nagesh has ordered the inclusion of the lesson on social reformer Sree Narayana Guru in the new social science textbook (Part 2) of Class 10, after mounting protests from the Billava community in Dakshina Kannada.
The government has announced that the textbooks will not be reprinted again. The changes will, however, be mentioned in the booklets that will be distributed to schools in the coming days.
The development came Monday after Sunil Kumar, the Minister of Culture & Kannada and Energy Department, and state BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel met Nagesh requesting him to retain the lesson on Guru in the textbook. Earlier, the Billava community had also warned Kumar of launching massive protests including other backward communities in the state soon, against the omission of the lesson on Guru.
Nagesh had earlier mentioned that the lesson on Guru was transferred from Class 10 history textbook to Class 10 Kannada textbook, citing that students felt overburdened with history lessons. However, the Billava community in Dakshina Kannada strongly protested against the move and maintained that Narayana Guru’s lesson should remain in history textbooks.
The Kannada textbook with Narayana Guru lesson has already been distributed in the physical format to students. After the revisions suggested by the committee courted controversy with writers and scholars joining the protests against the government, the School Education Department has introduced booklets that carry the corrected portions.
Courtesy: Indian Express