Scientists and educators across India on Thursday criticised a decision by the Centre’s top school curriculum board to drop biological evolution theory from the Class X syllabus, calling it a “dangerous change” for school science education.

They argued that every child needed to know something about evolutionary theory because it was critical to matters far beyond the study of biology and was key to developing a rational worldview.

“The scientific community feels that students will remain seriously handicapped in their thought processes if deprived of exposure to this fundamental discovery of science,” a statement signed by more than 1,800 scientists, teachers and others said.

The statement added: “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…. It also addresses our understanding of humans and their place in the tapestry of life.”

The controversy comes a week after the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) stripped Class XII textbooks of content on the Mughals and on the ban imposed on the RSS following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

The signatories cited a document on the NCERT website that lists topics dropped from the Class X science syllabus. These include sections on Charles Darwin, the origin of life, evolution, evolutionary relationships, fossils and human evolution.

The NCERT, whose textbooks have been adopted by the Central Board of Secondary Education and 15 state boards, has described the changes as part of an effort to rationalise the school syllabus.

Some of the changes, introduced as a temporary measure during the pandemic, are being continued with even after the resumption of classroom teaching at schools, the signatories complained.

Only a small fraction of Indian students choose the science stream in Classes XI and XII, and an even smaller fraction chooses biology as one of the subjects in these classes, they said.

Under these circumstances, the exclusion of key concepts of evolution from the Class X syllabus would result in the vast majority of students missing out on a critical part of essential learning, they said.

“Knowledge and understanding of evolutionary biology is important not just to any sub-field of biology but is also key to understanding the world around us,” said the statement, released through the Calcutta-based Breakthrough Science Society, a nationwide network of scientists and educators.

The scientists said that lessons on Darwin’s observations and insights, which led to the theory of natural selection, educate students about the process of science and the importance of critical thinking.

“Depriving students who do not go on to study biology after 10th standard of any exposure to this important field is a travesty of education,” they said.

The signatories include physicist Soumitro Banerjee from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Calcutta; biologist Raghavendra Gadagkar from the Indian Institute ofScience, Bangalore; biologist L.S. Shashidhara, director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore; astrophysicist Aniket Sule from the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai; and biologistSudha Rajamani from IISER Pune.

They said they disagreed with “such dangerous changes” in school science education and demanded the restoration of evolution theory to the Class X syllabus.

An email query from this newspaper to the NCERT director on Thursday evening, seeking a response to the concerns expressed by the scientists, had not evoked a response till late in the night.