India / Blatantly misogynistic, regressive: Sonia on controversial CBSE exam question

New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Monday “dropped” a controversial passage that appeared in a Class 10 examination last week, allegedly promoting regressive notions about women. The board has said it will award full marks to all students for passage No.1 for all sets of the question paper to ensure parity among them.

The move came hours after Congress president Sonia Gandhi raised an objection to the passage in the Lok Sabha, calling it “blatantly misogynist” and demanding an apology from the Ministry of Education.

“A passage in one set of the English Language and Literature paper of CBSE Class X first term examination held on 11 December 2021, is not in accordance with the guidelines of the board with regard to setting of question papers,” said Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of examinations, CBSE.

“In this backdrop and on the basis of feedback received from stakeholders, the matter was referred to a committee of subject experts. As per their recommendation, it has been decided to drop the passage No.1 and its accompanying questions of the Question Paper Series JSK/1… To ensure uniformity and parity, full marks will also be awarded to students for passage No. 1 for all sets of the question paper Class X English language and Literature,” he added.

Speaking about the question in the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi had said: “The passage contains atrocious statements such as and I quote, ‘women gaining independence is the main reason for a wide variety of social and family problems’; ‘wives stopped obeying their husbands and that is the main reason children and servants are undisciplined’.”

“The entire passage is riddled with such condemnable ideas and the questions that follow are equally nonsensical,” Gandhi added.

“Sir, I add my voice to the concerns of students, parents, teachers and educationists. And I raise strong objections to such blatantly misogynist material finding its way into an important examination conducted by the CBSE. It reflects extremely poorly on the standards of education and testing and it goes against all norms and principles of a progressive and empowered society,” she added, addressing the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. 

“Sir, I urge the Ministry of Education and the CBSE to immediately withdraw this question, issue an apology and conduct a thorough review into this egregious lapse to ensure this is never, never repeated again. I also urge that the Ministry of Education must conduct a review on gender sensitivity standards of the curriculum and testing,” she concluded.

During the Lower House proceedings, the Opposition leaders shouted “shame, shame” as Gandhi spoke.