New Delhi, July 7: In a respite to students, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday announced that it will reduce the syllabus for Classes IX-XII for academic session 2020-21 by up to 30 per cent to make up for academic loss, due to the Novel Coronavirus pandemic.
‘Looking at the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and the world, CBSE was advised to revise the curriculum and reduce course load for the students of Class 9th to 12th,’ Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said.
The reduction in the syllabus will be in terms of retaining the core concepts, the HRD minister added.
A notice regarding this decision has been uploaded on the Board’s official website.
It said the revision of syllabi was a measure taken due to the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and at different parts of the world.
‘Considering the importance of achieving the level of learning, the syllabus has been rationalised to the extent possible by retaining the core concepts,’ CBSE said in a statement.
The changes have been finalised by the respective Course Committees with the approval of the Curriculum Committee and Goverrning Body of the Board due to the “extraordinary situation prevailing in the country”.
The CBSE has said that the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for internal assessment and board examination.
It asked the heads of schools and teachers to ensure that the topics that had been reduced were explined to the students to the extent needed to connect different topics. “However, the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for Internal AssesseMent and year-end Board Examination,” it said.
For Classes I-VIII, schools should follow the Alternative Academic Calendar and Learning Outcomes specified by NCERT, it recommended.
Dr Pokhriyal said he had received more than 1,500 suggestions from educationists across the country on the reduction of the syllabus under the hashtag #SyllabusForStudents2020.
Students, parents and teachers can check the revised curriculum for 2021 Classes 9 to 12 on cbseacademic.nic.in link. The chapters have not been removed but a few portions of the chapters have been deducted.
