New Delhi, July 13: Iran’s revolution, Saudi Arabia’s monarchy and the Geishas of Japan are about to invade the classes of Indian schools in more than 20 countries, replacing lessons on Gandhi and the Ganga.

Students in the 130 Central Board of Secondary Education affiliated schools abroad will study about their local culture, history and politics, starting next year, with India relegated to case studies.

The CBSE is preparing a new social science curriculum for the schools — some are counted among the best in their country — following repeated complaints from the schools that India holds little interest for their students.

The new course will be introduced for Classes VI and VII initially, but the CBSE plans to expand its world social science curriculum to include the higher classes in the years to come.

Foreign nationals studying in India will also be allowed to opt for the new course.

“Boredom levels in these foreign schools have been rising. We had to change that situation,” C. Gurumurthy, director (academics), CBSE, told The Telegraph.

Over 95 per cent of students in these schools, the CBSE estimates, are of Indian origin. Most of them are the children of professionals and embassy staff.

A majority of the CBSE-affiliated schools abroad are in West Asia, with some scattered across other Asian countries, Africa and Russia. Many are run by the Indian embassy in the country — such as the solitary Kendriya Vidyalaya in Tehran.

“We have been writing to India for over a year, begging for a course that would interest the students. For many of them, especially the young ones, India is a country they only hear of at the dinner table,” an Indian administrator at the KV said over telephone, on condition of anonymity.

The last letter to the CBSE, the administrator said, asked for an inclusion of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in the curriculum.

“This is also important, because Iran is virtually a country under siege. If our students learn about Iran, the locals, especially the government officials, are likely to be more friendly to them,” she said.

The new curriculum, being prepared by a team of experts from the National Council for Educational Research and Training, will include history, geography and political science.

“The political history of the Middle East is very different from that of India. Students there can’t relate to what they have been studying till now,” Gurumurthy said.

The new course is likely to include studies on West Asia’s oil wealth. Students, CBSE officials said, will be asked to compare the political set up there with India’s democracy.

“It will be recommended that they study India, its struggle for Independence and India’s democracy in case studies,” Gurumurthy said.

The Geishas, Japan’s famous dancing girls are slotted in the course, but so are the ethnic conflicts troubling the Indian neighbourhood.

The struggle between the Maoists and the monarchy in Nepal, and the tensions between the Sinhalas and Tamils in Sri Lanka will be discussed in the new textbooks.

The ethnic diversity and fabulous markets of Singapore and Malaysia will be mentioned.

“There will be sections which the students will have to study compulsorily, and there are others which will be optional,” Gurumurthy said.

The histories of other countries — Europe, America and Australia — will also be discussed.