Punjab Chief Minister reports committee to review history syllabus

Chandigarh, May 7 Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today reported the constitution of a six-part oversight advisory group to look at the suggestions of the 2014 board that reviewed on the history syllabus and regulate all history books later on.

The move comes in the wake of the Shiromani Akali Dal charging that a noteworthy bit of Sikh and Punjab history had been expelled from the Class 12 educational programs.

The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) and the Congress government keep up that the educational programs was just "re-aligned" to coordinate the NCERT syllabus.

The chief minister today criticised the Opposition for unnecessarily politicising the issue and said his government had chosen to keep any such politicisation of history books by setting up a lasting board to administer the way toward defining the syllabus and guaranteeing blunder free books on the subject.

He said the decision to review the syllabus and print books in arrangement with the NCERT syllabus was taken amid the SAD-BJP administer in 2014, and that the discussion on the issue was "politically motivated".

Truth be told, there were no history books prior and what SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal was refering to was only a guide, he said at a press conference.

The chief minister asserted that the syllabus identifying with the Sikh Gurus had not been erased, and the whole history of the Gurus, beginning from Baba Banda Bahadur, had been fused in a sequential request in the syllabi for classes XI and XII.

The committee will be going by prominent antiquarian Prof Kirpal Singh and will incorporate previous bad habit chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University Prof J S Grewal, previous ace bad habit vhancellor of GNDU Prof. Prithipal Singh Kapur, emeritus Prof. of History at Panjab University Indu Banga, and two prominent antiquarians to be selected by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, he said.

The committee has been mandated to consider and provide details regarding the proposals of the master gather constituted by the PSEB in 2014 to survey the progressions made in the new history syllabus for classes XI and XII consequent to the suggestions of the master gathering and to recommend redresses, assuming any, Capt Amarinder said.

The committee has been asked to examine the contents of the text books prescribed for classes XI and XII and to recommend remedies for authentic and different blunders, assuming any, and to adjust, as might be practicably conceivable, the history syllabus with that prescribed by the NCERT, he said.

The committee has also been directed to oversee the syllabus and substance of history course readings endorsed for all classes in the Punjab School Education Board and to guarantee that there are no verifiable errors, he said.