Scientists and educators have raised concerns after National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) decided to remove Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory of Biological Evolution’ from its Class 10 textbook. Over 1,800 scientists, science teachers, and educators have signed an open letter demanding the restoration of the theory.

They believe that understanding the process of evolution is “crucial in building a scientific temper” and depriving students of this exposure is a “travesty of education”.

“In the current educational structure, only a small fraction of students choose the science stream in grade XI or XII, and an even smaller fraction of those choose biology as one of the subjects of study. Thus, the exclusion of key concepts from the curriculum till grade 10 amounts to a vast majority of students missing a critical part of essential learning in this field,” the letter titled ‘An Appeal Against Exclusion of Evolution from Curriculum’ said.

The letter is signed by scientists from institutions of repute such as Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) and IITs. They believe that evolutionary biology is not only important to any sub-field of biology, but it is also key to understanding the world around us.

“Evolutionary biology is an area of science with a huge impact on how we choose to deal with an array of problems we face as societies and nations from medicine and drug discovery, epidemiology, ecology, and environment, to psychology, and it also addresses our understanding of humans and their place in the tapestry of life. Although many of us do not explicitly realise, the principles of natural selection help us understand how any pandemic progresses or why certain species go extinct, among many other critical issues,” states the letter.

According to the council’s document listing the changes, Chapter 9 in an NCERT Class 10 textbook titled ‘Heredity and Evolution’ has been replaced with ‘Heredity’. The list of dropped topics in this chapter includes Charles Robert Darwin, Origin of Life on Earth, Molecular Phylogeny, Evolution, Evolution and Classification, Tracing Evolutionary Relationships, Evolution by Stages, and Human Evolution.

Scientists argue that these changes, which were first introduced as a temporary measure during the pandemic, are being continued even though schooling has gone back to offline mode.

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