CBSE drops passage from Class 10 paper after receiving criticism for being offensive to women – Education News
Faced with a lot of criticism, including in the Lok Sabha, over a comprehension passage in the Class 10 English Board exam held on Sunday, the CBSE, expressing regret over the “unfortunate incident”, dropped the passage and said full marks would be awarded to all students for the accompanying questions. The Board also said that it would review its question paper-setting process.
The passage, which featured in one set of the English question papers, drew criticism for being retrograde and offensive to women as it seemed to draw a link between “lack of parental authority in the home” and “the “emancipation of the wife”. The closing para of the controversial comprehension passage had read, “What people were slow to observe was that the emancipation of the wife destroyed the parent’s authority over the children. The mother did not exemplify the obedience upon which she still tried to insist… In bringing the man down from his pedestal the wife and the mother deprived herself, in fact, of the means of discipline.”
Following the criticism, CBSE had referred the matter to a committee of subject experts. On Monday, CBSE issued a circular stating that the passage has been dropped, noting that it “is not in accordance with the guidelines of the board with regard to the setting of question papers”. Since different comprehension passages had been featured in other question paper sets, the Board notified that full marks would be awarded to students for passage No. 1 for all sets of the Class 10 CBSE English Language and Literature.
Later in the evening, the Board put out a statement on Twitter, saying, “CBSE is committed to equity and excellence in education and promotes inclusiveness and gender sensitivity… CBSE regrets this unfortunate incident and is setting up an expert committee to thoroughly review and strengthen the question paper setting process, to avoid such occurrences in the future.”
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