NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and
Training) is expected to reduce the school social science syllabuses by up to
20 per cent but keep any cuts to the minimum in mathematics, the sciences and
language subjects.
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NCERT
said that it is no way involved in revising the school textbooks following a
government nudge early this year, would follow the Centre's recommendation to reduce
the syllabuses by 50 per cent across the board.
While
the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) follows the NCERT textbooks, 23
state school boards have adapted these, with minimal changes to some of the
books. The revised books will be prescribed from the coming academic session.
Human
resource development minister Prakash Javadekar had at an event on Wednesday
said: "In order to provide enough time to students to develop their
talents, the syllabus is proposed to be reduced by half." But NCERT
officials said they had decided to limit the syllabus cuts on the basis of the
more than one lakh comments they had received after seeking feedback from the
stakeholders.
Like the
government, the parents mostly wanted the syllabus and the NCERT textbooks
reduced by around half, but the teachers largely supported the present content
load. Some teachers even demanded additional content, council sources said.
"We
have to ensure that Indian students do not lag behind in rigor. They should be
able to compete at the international level," an official involved in the
revision said. He added
that the council also needed to ensure that the increase in content from one
class to the next resembled a smooth progression rather than a sharp jump,
which might happen if the curriculum was drastically reduced in the lower
classes.
Council
officials therefore found the target of a 50 per cent reduction of syllabus
impractical, he said. They felt that physics and chemistry, particularly in
Classes 9 to 10, allowed hardly any scope to reduce the syllabus while in
mathematics, the extra examples and illustrations could be done away with.
History,
political science and economics did lend themselves to somewhat higher cuts,
the officials decided. The
council has already prepared "expected learning outcome" norms for
every class, and felt the syllabus revision must adhere to these.
"The
NCERT will not go by the wishes of the parents. As a top academic body, its
focus is on the students learning (their subjects)," the official said. The
ministry had asked NCERT to reduce the syllabus on the basis of feedback it had
received at six conferences, attended mostly by education officials from the
states, it had held last year.
"Students
are bogged down so much in studies right from the eighth standard onwards that
they have no time to spare for manifesting and nurturing their talents,"
Javadekar had said on Wednesday.
NCERT
had last revised all syllabuses in 2005 and its textbooks in 2006-07. According
to the best international practices, school syllabuses and textbooks should be
revised every five years.
Just
before the NDA government came to power in May 2014, NCERT had started the
process of reviewing its curricula and books by setting up 21 focus groups. But the
new government asked it to put off the revision on the ground that the process
for drafting a new education policy had started. The policy has not been finalized
yet..
(Source: The Telegraph, edited)
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