In what could prove to be a welcome intervention for offloading excess baggage from the œheavily loaded CBSE syllabus, Delhi™s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has decided to prune the classes VI-VIII syllabus of government schools by 25 percent. This will be followed up by a 20 percent reduction in syllabus of classes IX-X. While the official reason advanced is freeing students for co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, the real reason is well-documented poor learning outcomes of children, particularly in government primary-secondaries. The syllabus reduction announcement was made on Teachers™ Day (September 5) by Manish Sisodia, education minister of the Aam Aadmi (˜common man™) Party government which was voted to power in the Delhi state legislative assembly in February with a stunning majority of 67 in the 70 member house. Sisodia is also the deputy chief minister of Delhi state. In a circular dated September 10, the AAP government notified the proposed syllabus changes to all government school heads for feedback from subject and other teachers. œIt is proposed to reduce the pressure of heavy loaded syllabi of various subjects and provide students with more quality time for vocational skills, arts like theatre, dance, sports etc. Accordingly, reduction in the existing syllabi of classes VI-X English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Punjabi, maths, science and social science has been worked out, says the state government™s notification. Unsurprisingly, this revolutionary (in the moribund Indian context) initiative of the AAP government was condemned by several academics including Yogendra Yadav, an academic expelled from AAP in April and former advisor of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which designs the CBSE syllabus, mandatory for all government schools in Delhi. Yadav says the deletions systematically prune textbooks of everything progressive, œboth in a pedagogical and political sense. œWhenever the texts go beyond the old formal institutional descriptions of laws and institutions, they face an axe. In sum the proposal has a problem with the National Curriculum Framework. It sets the stage for what the BJP may be preparing to do with these textbooks, posted Yadav on facebook. A reportedly 100-strong team of educators including retired principals, teachers and consultants, which has been advising the AAP government to design 50 model government schools it promised in its manifesto, is believed to be also recasting the CBSE syllabus for government schools. œWhen a student doesn™t have basic language and maths skills, how can she comprehend complex knowledge concepts? That™s the rationale for reducing the syllabus. If we lessen children™s academic burden without compromising essentials, the outcome will be beneficial, says a former deputy director of the directorate of education and member of the model schools design team. The feedback exercise and option to prune the syllabus is also open to private schools, but it™s unlikely that any of them will exercise this option for fear of a sharp fall in average scores in the mandatory class XII school-leaving exam. œI have been teaching NCERT-designed CBSE textbooks for years and don™t see a need to reduce the…
