Malpractice in Standard 10th English Book: Domain Expert Rathnasabapathi writes to Chief Minister to take Action
Coimbatore: Domain Expert for Standard 10th English, Dr.K.Rathnasabapathi has written a letter to Chief Minister Stalin requesting to take action regarding the Malpractice in Standard Tenth English Book.
Domain Expert for Editing std X English, Former Associate Professor and Head, Dept of English, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. Dr. K. Rathnasabapathi in a letter to the Chief Minister has said the following.
"I was appointed Domain Expert for editing 10th standard text books in English. To give a sense of direction as to how to edit text books to the budding teachers involved in the said editing text book, I have authored the first unit entitled Humour myself. And, I have bestowed all experience and expertise on the said unit so much so I involved two professors and two retired teachers of English with 35 years of experience in English for fine-tuning my Unit. Also, I had the said unit even standardized involving the tenth standard Tamil medium students in Coimbatore.
Further, I have donated more than 100 pages of Spoken English material from my book to be included in the QR Code. The complete version of my first unit based on the std IX pattern along with my own material for spoken English sent to tnscertgn.com on 12.12.2018. But it is quite unfortunate that some vested interests, during the review of the said book in my absence, made a presentation of the incomplete first draft version of my first unit to Director Latha and the Director, SCERT, which is illogical and malicious."
He added, "And it is due to this misrepresentation, the final version of my first Unit on Humour has been dropped under the false pretext of Non Conformity to standard IX pattern. The net result is that the poor students of our state are denied an opportunity to learn Spoken English as Communication. Subsequently, for want of material on Humour at the eleventh hour, the vested interests did not mention the theme of any unit, which is unbecoming and unprecedented. Further, in a state of chaos, these vested interests shuffled all the units in order to get the themes of the all units eclipsed.
The irony here is that all the themes have been selected by none other than the then Educational Secretary himself. In sum, the English book edited for standard X does not lend itself to imparting the skills of language but to writing bazaar guides. Besides correcting and revising the third unit entitled Travel and Adventure, I have produced and added to this unit my material for grammar which includes lessons on the passive voice running to 33 pages to be included in QR Code. But it is shocking to note that the original third unit prepared by the material developers, with all grammar mistakes and weaknesses retained and with my lessons on the Passive Voice removed, is presented in the book.
In the same way, having corrected and revised the fourth unit entitled Technology and 21st Century Skills, I edited the poem ‘The Machines’ all by myself and produced and added my material for grammar to this said unit. To my chagrin, all my corrections, revisions, and additions made to the said unit are removed in total without my knowledge."
He then listed out all the corrections and additions made by him dropped from the textbook and said, "Here, not only my material but also Human Values are thrown overboard. To add insult to injury, the 10th std English Book released begins with a preface in which the first sentence itself contains a glaring grammar mistake. Finally, after my representation of this issue to the then authorities, they had all my contributions included in the QR Code named Assessment in the book, because the book had already been published.
It all happened after the unholy transfer of T. Udhyachandran IAS from School education. In the context of Std X exams being cancelled this year, I would be grateful to your good self if you could get the original version of the said book published in order to set right the injustices meted out to the poor students of Tamilnadu. In the larger interests of our poor students’ community, I am ready to help your good offices in this regard."