The HRD minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, today (June 9) announced that there are plans to reduce the syllabus for the upcoming academic batch 2020, seeking suggestions from the educational stakeholders and public representatives.
As the Covid-19 lockdown further impedes, derailing the academic schedule, the states are desparately in search of a way to deal with the educational disturbances. Many schools and colleges have promoted their students without conducting examinations while others have resorted to online classes and exams for the sole purpose of keeping it in the rails. Unfortunately, as pointed out by the Educational Minister Manish Sisodia, “Online teaching can only complement learning in school and not replace it” a major section of students are unable to attend the online classes due to lack of arrangements causing several parents, demand a reduction in the syllabus.
After a meeting held between the Union Minister of Human Resource and Development (HRD) Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and state education minister, Delhi Deputy CM and Education Minister Manish Sisodia, The HRD Minister tweeted, “In view of the current circumstances and after receiving a lot of requests from parents and teachers, we are contemplating the option of reduction in the syllabus and instructional hours for the coming academic year.”
In the meeting, the topics about health and safety of students and issues related to online or digital learning were discussed. Delhi Deputy CM and Education Minister Manish Sisodia had also asked, to not only drop the syllabus of school but also for JEE Main and NEET entrance exams scheduled to be held next year. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has said that it is planning to reduce the syllabus ‘proportionally’ but there is no clarity yet on a college-level and entrance exam-level curriculum.
However, it has not yet been decided how the curriculum will be rationalised, hence the Minister had also requested via his Twitter handle “I would like to appeal to all teachers, academicians, and educationists to share their point of view on this matter using #SyllabusForStudents2020 on MHRD’s or my Twitter and Facebook pages so that we can take them into consideration while making a decision”, to the stakeholders including teachers, headmasters, school management, educationalists, parents, students and anybody who has opinions and solutions to resolve this issue to kindly send their suggestions.
The objective of seeking suggestions is to make sure the syllabus is as much as balanced for the various subjects offered from class 1 to class 12 as prescribed by NCERT/CBSE.
