The Truth in Social Sciences

 I am not competent enough to comment on the recent NCERT textbook controversy but reminded me of a discussion with a Sociologist on the way subjects are taught in schools.


When it comes to the Science subjects and of course Mathematics, there are theorems to prove this and prove that and more importantly, understand the application in the real world. Go to the lab, mix the solutions, identify the smell of rotten eggs as hydrogen sulphide, a plethora of kits to help understand the abstract concepts of electromagnetism and for the aspiring software programmer there is always logic of ‘if-else-end if’ introduced very early in their life.



But then when it comes to Social Sciences most of the textbooks describe what the society ought to be and very rarely what it is like. Do we help them understand the realities of our STATE machineries (at the three-tiers of the Government), The MARKET forces that are deciding our lives, including how privatisation is having an impact on us (both pros and cons) and finally what kind of SOCIETY do we aspire for? One that is guided by our constitutional values or one that is guided by the noise in social media. What we probably need is model panchayats in schools much more than MUNs. For that matter, we rarely help them differentiate the true idea of Humanities as opposed to the Social Sciences.
_________
We have fantastic higher education institutions in the country that are deeply engaged and focused on Social Sciences and Humanities, that are Central Universities, many old State-run institutions as well as the new private Universities trying to keep the spirit of these age-old disciplines alive in a STEM dominated world. But then wish we had the same focus on History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology and Philosophy at the school level as well.

Truth should not be restricted to the Science disciplines alone, expose the truth and the lived realities of the Social early on to our future citizens !

Note: Image from the Chapter on Development (Class X - Economics), NCERT

SocialSciences Humanities HigherEducation SchoolEducation

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