THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a damage-control move, general education minister V Sivankutty on Monday instructed the SCERT director to bar members of the school textbooks editorial board found responsible for an objectionable portrayal of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the draft of a teachers’ handbook from future academic work. The draft of the Class IV Environmental Studies teachers’ handbook had wrongly claimed that Netaji fled to Germany “fearing the British”. Authorities of the Kerala State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) had downplayed the reference as an inadvertent mistake that could be corrected when the book is finally published and distributed among teachers for reference.However, the political implications of such a portrayal prompted the govt to call for immediate correction and the removal of those responsible for such an interpretation from the editorial board. Sivankutty said the govt acted promptly and swiftly on the lapse as it did not subscribe to the Union govt’s policy of misinterpreting historical facts for political gains.“The corrected version of the handbook is currently available online. We always ensure that historical facts are not distorted in textbooks and will continue to stick to that policy,” he said.
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