Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Dispute over panel report on textbook

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Assembly witnessed some sharp exchanges between Education Minister M.A. Baby and the Opposition over the reported interim recommendations of the K.N. Panikkar Committee, constituted to look into alleged flaws in the Class VII Social Science textbook.

The Opposition raised the issue twice, first in the form of a submission by V.D. Satheesan (Congress) and the second time as a point of order by K.C. Joseph (Congress) about the contents of the report as reported in the media on Wednesday.

Mr. Satheesan questioned the propriety of the government decision to make Dr. Panikkar the chairperson of the committee that looked into the Class VII textbook on the contention that he was also the chairman of the focus group of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT). He also pointed out that V. Karthikeyan Nair, another member of the Dr. Panikkar Committee, was also a member of the same focus group.

Mr. Baby replied that Dr. Panikkar had communicated to the SCERT Director in a letter dated October 16, 2006, that he could not be the chairman of the focus group and as such there was nothing wrong in his having functioned as the present panel’s chairman.

Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy was immediately on his feet seeking to know who replaced Dr. Panikkar as the chairman of the focus group, to which Mr. Baby replied that he would collect information on that and inform the House.

Mr. Chandy was quick to latch on to it and said it was regrettable that the Minister could not give this crucial information despite his having been informed sufficiently in advance about the submission. The Minister, he pointed out, was also silent about Mr. Karthikeyan Nair’s role in the two committees.

Mr. Joseph’s case was that the Minister had not gone by his statement in the media to table the report of the Dr. Panikkar Committee on Wednesday. The Minister said he had not made any such statement, but had only said that the curriculum committee would be convened immediately to discuss the recommendation of the Dr. Panikkar Committee and that, since the Assembly was in session, the House would be taken into confidence about the steps to be taken on the basis of the decisions of the curriculum committee.

Mr. Chandy once again stood up to point out that the Minister himself was on record that the textbook in question needed “changes, additions and deletions.” He asked the government not to stand on prestige on the issue and withdraw the book immediately. Mr. Baby said the interim report of the Dr. Panikkar Committee did not state that the book must be withdrawn and asked the Opposition to appreciate the democratic manner in which the government had responded to the issues raised by it and various other quarters. He added that it was the Opposition that should shed its false pride and withdraw its arbitrary agitation over the issue.

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