A Note on the Quality of Geography Text Books for Secondary Schools in India

In India, where quite a large number of schools are without requisite teaching resources including specialized subject teachers, the centrality of textbooks in school curriculum assumes great importance. In the absence of enabling social and physical environment myriad students are left with textbook as the only learning resource. Similarly, lack of adequate teaching resources in schools force many teachers to depend exclusively on textbooks as teaching resource. The centrality of textbooks as teaching-learning resource is especially crucial for a subject like geography. Geography is taught as a part social science in secondary schools. Besides, in many schools geography is taught by social science teachers who are either non-geography graduates or un-trained geography graduates. This very fact greatly hampers its learning. Therefore, access to quality of geography textbooks becomes particularly pertinent. Access to quality geography textbook may not only enable a social science teacher, who may not have necessary expertise to teach geography, to acquire some competency in geography but also ease and enhance students’ self learning. In this backdrop, the paper examines the quality concerns of geography textbooks in secondary schools. It begins by reviewing some important studies concerning content analysis of geography school textbooks from various perspectives. It then goes on to map the perception of teachers of geography concerning the quality of geography textbooks used in 170 secondary schools from 22 different school boards. The paper also describes students’ perception of geography textbooks through the eyes of their teachers.