The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is working on rationalizing the academic curriculum to make up for the academic loss caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the reduced syllabus will be ready in a month’s time, CBSE Chairman Manoj Ahuja said.
“There will definitely have to be some rationalization of the syllabus, because there will definitely be some loss of time, even with blended schooling and home schooling,” Mr. Ahuja said during a virtual conference on ‘Future of Schools: Overcoming COVID-19 challenge and beyond’ organized by Ashoka University.
“We cannot bring sudden changes in the education system and create confusion and uncertainty. The curriculum reforms are going to be in sync with the learning outcomes. We are rationalizing the curriculum. We plan to retain the core elements, which are very necessary in terms of learning outcomes,” he added.
He further said, “If something is duplicated in some way or working extra on the same concept, we aim to shelve it, and thirdly anything which can be done in a more practical manner should be done that way. That’s what we are planning and we should be able to finalize within a month’s time,” Hindustan Times reported.
According to him, schools will also be asked to start shifting to a competency-based education system from this academic session. The Board further aims at moving away from the rote-learning, content-based, examination-focussed structure of the Indian education system while, competency-based education looks to map a child’s understanding and application of concepts rather than knowledge of facts.
While this is being considered to be applied in an incremental manner, it means that from the coming academic session, the CBSE’s Class 10 board examinations will include 20% case-based or application-based questions, which have real-life connections. There will be 10% of such questions in the Class 12 board examinations for all subjects as well.
However, the Board’s chairman emphasized that it is important for the wider ecosystem of parents, coaching institutes, higher education institutions, and job recruiters to come on board too and be willing to transform positively from a traditional mindset. He mentioned, “If getting into college or getting a job is still based on the old rote-learning, content-based model, there will be no incentive for change from the demand side. The change needs to be simultaneous,” as stated by the Hindu.
Earlier, the Union Human Resources Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ had announced in April that CBSE will be reducing the curriculum for the next year’s academic calendar for all the classes to make up for the lost time caused due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown asserting that the curriculum will be curtailed in proportion to the lost time.
