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Moral education to include Gita lessons in state schools from this session
The 2015 decision to introduce Bhagwad Gita lessons in school curriculum will be implemented from this academic session. The moral science textbook designed by the SCERT will include excerpts from other religious texts as well.
The state government is implementing its plan to include Bhagwad Gita in the school curriculum from the current academic session onwards. On Monday, Haryana's education minister Ram Bilas Sharma met the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to finalise the launch date of the textbook on moral education.
Government officials say that the book has been specially designed by SCERT, and will be released by Saint Gyananand in Kurukshetra on July 5. However to dispel fears of radicalisation, they also mentioned that the book not only contained simplified lessons from the Gita but also from holy books of other religions.
"Since the students won't be comfortable with shlokas, we will introduce Gita Saar (essence of the holy book) for classes VI to VIII," said Snehlata, director of SCERT. "Along with Gita, teachings from other religions have also been incorporated in the book, including Islam, Christianity and Buddhism," she added.
The subject will also include biographies of some famous people, including mathematicians and scientists. According to sources, the book also contains biographies of some political leaders.
However, it is noteworthy that there will be no special teachers for the subject. While Gita will be taught by Sanskrit teachers, chapters on other religions will be taken up by other teachers. "The chapter on a scientist's biography for instance can be taught by science teachers," said Snehlata.
The decision to include the Gita in the curriculum was taken as early as 2015; however, the launch was postponed due to the delay in designing of the curriculum. Though earlier it was meant for classes V to XII, later the decision on the choice of classes was left to SCERT.
Expectedly, the state government drew a lot of criticism when the decision to introduce only Gita was first announce. However, the officials now say teachings from other religions have also been included thus offering a well rounded curriculum and hence there is no question of radicalisation of education.