With the COVID-19 pandemic keeping students out of classrooms, forcing schools into various distance education modes, and reducing teaching time, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to cut its 2020-21 syllabus by 30% for students from Classes 9-12.
Why does it matter?
Although the CBSE said core concepts would be retained, there has been concern regarding the topics removed from the syllabus. For the sciences and mathematics, some teachers are worried that the issues released are foundational to understanding concepts covered in the following academic year. The broader public concern has revolved around social sciences, history, political science, and other humanities subjects. Opposition politicians and academics are protesting against the omission of topics such as federalism, citizenship, nationalism, secularism, democracy, and diversit ands analysis of recent economic policies such as demonetization and the Goods and Services Tax.
What was the rationale?
“When we interacted with our schools and principals, there was a demand that with this much content in the provided time, they can’t complete the syllabus,” said Joseph Emmanuel, Director of Academics at CBSE. He pointed out that the CBSE has already been in the process of promoting competency-based education and experiential learning instead of content-based learning dependent on memorizing facts. “... in the COVID scenario, we thought why not experiment by integrating different topics for the examination, so that the load on the children is minimized. So the strategy is through pedagogy. You will be integrating new topics, and teachers will be giving more focus on concepts, rather than the content.”
How is the curriculum compiled?
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is responsible for developing the National Curriculum Framework that all school systems follow. It also prints textbooks based on its syllabus each year, which are used in all CBSE schools.
The CBSE course committees, each with about six to seven members, comprises school teachers and university professors. They meet every year to deliberate on changes and updates and recommend a revised syllabus by February, before the new academic session be-.
Gins. They were asked to meet again in June to select topics for the 30% reduction this year. “Mainly, we use the NCERT curriculum and syllabus, but every examination board does about 1020% variation,” said Dr. Emmanuel. “The course committees are an independent group. There was no outside input for the rationalization process. Being an autonomous body, there is complete independence on academics,” he explained. The course committee suggestions were approved by the CBSE’s Curriculum Committee and then its Governing Body, including representatives from the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Delhi State government, apart from school principals and vice-chancellors. “Topics suggested for rationalization have already been covered. For example, concepts such as democracy or federalism have been interwoven from the middle level onwards. The children are already familiar with these concepts, and they can be taught through various alternative ways,” added Dr. Emmanuel. Subjects such as GST and demonetization may have been left out of Business Studies because they were covered in the Economics syllabus; instead, he said.
How does this inform the teaching process?
Teachers say that given the time crunch exacerbated by COVID-19, it is doubtful that topics that will not be tested in the examination will be taught in the classroom. “Even in a regular year, many political science teachers omit subjects such as federalism, democracy, and citizenship from the political theory chapters in Class 11, to begin the Class 12 syllabus instead. They don’t see the point in teaching such ‘vague’ subjects, and the COVID-19 rationalization only validates that kind of thinking. Each school has complete discretion for Class 11 since there is only an internal examination,” said a political science teacher from a reputed Delhi school who did not wish to be named.
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