West Bengal board plans to reduce syllabus load

Somdatta Basu / TNN / Updated: Jul 5, 2020, 12:01 IST

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The state government has advised the Syllabus Reforms Committee to start discussions on reducing the curriculum load by holding talks with both the Madhyamik and Higher Secondary Council. Sources said the committee has suggested retaining the conceptual and class-specific relevant topics while eliminating any repetition and time-consuming chapters. The removed chapters will be added to the higher classes. The CISCE-affiliated schools have also started to re-frame the class schedule based on the new syllabus.

West Bengal board plans to reduce syllabus load

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KOLKATA: The state government has advised the Syllabus Reforms Committee to start discussions on reducing the curriculum load by holding talks with both the Madhyamik and Higher Secondary Council. Sources said the committee has suggested retaining the conceptual and class-specific relevant topics while eliminating any repetition and time-consuming chapters. The removed chapters will be added to the higher classes.

The CISCE-affiliated schools have also started to re-frame the class schedule based on the new syllabus.
“Majority of the children who study in state-board schools live in distant corners that have no or limited internet connection. So, the syllabus is likely to be reduced by 35%-50% as four months have already been lost,” said a school education department official.

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Giving relief to students, who are already under so much of stress, is essential. But boards will also have to ensure that students do not miss out on learning important topics of the syllabus in a particular class. Giving short-term relief is essential but long-term requirements, too, will have to be kept in mind.

Among the ways that are being explored to make up for the loss of classes is to add an hour of instructions to the school timings or even holding classes on Saturdays. A Madhyamik Board official, however, pointed out that the “actual” loss of instruction time is around two months at the moment. “The summer holidays were extended. The quantity of a syllabus which has to be removed depends on the reopening of the classes,” said the Madhyamik Board official. He denied that the boards will omit chapters based on the content and not merely remove any significant “percentage” of the syllabus.

The CISCE-affiliated schools on Saturday started a subject-wise detailed analysis of the proposed syllabus as the curtailed curriculum was released by the Council a day earlier. The schools are now reworking at their structure of imparting online training, based on the suggested new syllabus and teaching according to priority.
The schools are following the sequence in which the curtailed syllabus has been uploaded by the Council. “Since there is a further possibility of reducing the chapters, we are following the sequence of topics,” said Nabarun De, principal of Central Modern School.
For CBSE schools, NCERT is on the way to reduce the syllabus load.

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