The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has clarified that the Preamble continues to appear in the opening pages of all new textbooks, including all social science textbooks. The clarification comes days after it was highlighted that the Preamble was dropped from the Class IX social science textbook.
Revised Social Science Textbook Structure
The revised social science textbook integrates history, geography, and political science into a single volume. While the Class IX social science textbook discusses the Constitution, it does not explain the Preamble. Officials from the NCERT said topics had been redistributed across different grades instead of being covered in a single textbook.
“The Preamble continues to appear in the opening pages of all new NCERT textbooks, including all social science textbooks. It is also part of the Class X syllabus. Constitutional values, including secularism, justice, liberty and socialism, are already introduced in Class VI to VIII, especially in the Class VII social science book, and will be dealt with in more detail in Class X,” an official said.
Inclusion of Modern Challenges
The official added, “The political science portion of the textbook section also talks about challenges to democratic practices in India. We have added spread of fake news, misinformation, damaging public property, violating public rules along with well-known challenges such as poverty, regionalism, social discrimination, and gender inequality.”
Previous Controversy in 2024
In 2024 as well, there was a huge uproar over the removal of the Preamble from textbooks. Then the NCERT said for the first time it was giving great importance to various facets of the Constitution — Preamble, fundamental duties, fundamental rights, and the national anthem. “The understanding that only the Preamble reflects the Constitution and Constitutional Values is flawed and narrow. Why should children not acquire Constitutional Values from fundamental duties, fundamental rights and national anthem along with Preamble?” NCERT said in a statement in 2024.
