Kochi: School textbooks will include the preamble to the Constitution of India.
The CPI(M)-led government in Kerala has decided to incorporate the preamble in textbooks of classes 1 to 10 to instil constitutional values in children’s minds, PTI reported.
General Education Minister V Sivankutty, who is also the chairman of the State Curriculum Committee, announced the significant decision in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
The State Curriculum Steering Committee has approved 173 new textbooks for Classes I, III, V, VII and IX as part of curriculum reforms implemented after a decade.
“It is the first time that the preamble of the Constitution is included and printed at the start of every textbook,” said General Education minister V Sivankutty, who is also chairman of the State Curriculum Committee.
“The Preamble will be part of all the revised textbooks in the state. It will also be made a part of the teachers training. This will help both teachers and students understand the core of the Preamble to the Constitution,” said Jayaprakash RK, director of State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
The preamble will be in the language of the respective textbook.
Children in lower classes may find it difficult to understand the concept of Constitution, but they will be able to grasp its basics by the time they go to the fifth standard, the SCERT director remarked.
Senior Left leader and former Finance minister TM Thomas Isaac said it is the response of the state against attempts to ‘communalise education.’
“The revised school textbooks of Kerala will include Preamble to the Constitution, and the curriculum will be gender sensitive. Lessons on POCSO rules, democratic and secular values and scientific temperament will be included. That’s our response to the attempts to communalise education,” Thomas wrote on social media platform X.