The Indian education system has hardly seen any significant changes in the past few years.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) brought one in its latest decision.
CBSE officially announced a 30 percent reduction in the syllabus for students from class 9-12th.
However, the decision is applicable only for the 2020-21 academic year, the Board clarified.
“The rationalization of syllabus up to 30% has been undertaken by the Board for nearly 190 subjects of elms IX to XII for the academic session 2020-21 as a one-time measure only,” the Board said in a statement.
The Board said there would be no questions from these chapters in the final exams too for this academic year.
Under the new decision, chapters pertaining to democratic rights, federalism, citizenship, secularism, religion, caste, foreign relations, among other subjects, have been decided to be dropped from the main course.
The Board further explained that they have directed schools to follow NCERT’s Alternative Academic Calendar.
To avoid confusion, the topics ‘wrongly mentioned in media as deleted’ have been covered under the NCERT calendar, the Board informed.
The HRD Ministry said the latest decision is in line with the idea of retaining core concepts.
Commenting on the move, Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor said, “One has to doubt the motives of those who selected the topics to drop. Have they decided democracy, diversity, secularism and the like are more dispensable concepts for tomorrow’s Indian citizens?”.
Gujarat Follows CBSE
Following CBSE lines, the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) also called for a reduction of the syllabus for the students retaining only essential topics.
“Instructions have been passed on to the Board to begin work on syllabus reduction. Suggestions from the subject experts would be sought after which the decision would be taken on what is to be left and what is to be retained,” says Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama.
The State Board will make the final decision on the revised syllabus very soon.
Will other states consider the same?
