CBSE syllabus reduction in 2020: Sadly Politics has started over education!

CBSE syllabus reduction: Politics has started over education!

Between the ongoing dispute over the reduction of the course syllabus for school students, the Union Cabinet Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said that the widespread discussion “resorts to sensationalism by combining topics selectively to represent a misleading narrative.”

The Human Resource and Development Ministry explained that this is a one-time proposal that is being executed, analyzing the COVID-19 situation.

Special from the political science topics that have been reduced, Pokhriyal claimed that there is a broad range of topics over subjects like biology and maths, which have been eliminated from the syllabus this year.

Characteristics of consistency, inconsistency, determinants, and the number of solutions of the method of linear equations are some of the mathematics topics that will not be included as a part of the syllabus this year. The schools have been requested to follow the substitute calendar introduced by the National Council Of Educational Research And Training (NCERT).

These topics shouldn’t be deleted by CBSE

“However, CBSE should not eliminate 3-4 topics like nationalism, federalism & make a concocted narrative, local govt, wider research of different subjects will show that this is occurring over subjects,” the cabinet minister Pokhriyal stated in a tweet.

“The topics eliminated in economics subject are the balance of payments deficit, measures of dispersion, etc. Also, topics eliminated in physics are heat transfer, among others, heat engine & refrigerator,” Pokhriyal tweeted.

Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister, questioned CBSE for syllabus deduction

The CBSE should explain the reason behind cutting specific chapters from the school curriculum. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, supporting that the CBSE board must have had “powerful” reasons behind the move.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday had reported that it was justified by up to 30 percent of the syllabus for classes 9 to 12 for the academic year 2020-21 to decrease the course load on students amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Human Resource Development Ministry states that the curriculum has been thought while remembering core topics.

The CBSE board in its syllabus rationalization action has dropped chapters on demonetization, secularism, nationalism, India’s relations with its neighbors, democracy and diversity, and growth of local governments in India, among others, as per the updated syllabus.

“The Kejriwal-led Delhi Government has always raised and spoke for syllabus reduction, and I have said the same on various events as I feel a huge syllabus does not mean more learning. I support the CBSE’s declaration to decrease the syllabus for the academic session 2020-21 in the secondary and senior secondary classes. Still, I have doubts and concerns across the syllabus deduction exercise’s method and content,” Sisodia stated.

Social science is one subject where there is a “highest scope of debate and acknowledges that no matter which topics are taken or left out, they are obliged to be asked. Hence the CBSE board should have remained careful and demonstrate its justification for cutting certain topics”, he added.

“I expect that the CBSE should reveal the outstanding reasons behind cutting these topics rather than telling that ‘decline in classroom teaching due to closure of schools’ requires a decrease in the syllabus. Hence, randomly some topics have been reduced,” Sisodia, who upholds the education responsibility, said.

The topics of subjects like social science that are eliminated are essential in a modern context that children must learn about it from “authentic source rather than through ‘Whatsapp University,’ “the deputy chief minister Sisodia stated.

The final elimination made on the topics by CBSE for the syllabus

The CBSE syllabus eliminated topics such as federalism, secularism and nationalism, environmental chemistry for grade 11th. At the same time, the chapters that include demonetization and India’s relationships with the neighboring countries will be excluded from the class 12th syllabus.

The CBSE has also excluded course material on democracy and the challenges, religion and gender, and popular movements in the history for class 10th students. Properties of determinants, inconsistency, consistency, and the number of solutions of the linear equations system are several mathematics topics that will not be included in the syllabus of this year.

This appears as the NCERT course syllabus for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) that has been decreased by up to 30%.