NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Human Resources Development will seek suggestions from teachers, education experts, parents and students on what should be retained in the NCERT syllabus followed in Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools across India and what should be done away with.
The decision comes after an announcement by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar that the NCERT syllabus will be reduced by about half in coming sessions.
Javadekar told reporters on Monday that the idea of having quality education across the country emerged predominantly from the six workshops held by the ministry as well as high-level meetings with state education officials on how to improve the quality of school education.“More than 200 NGOs, education experts, state government officers, headmasters and many teachers took part in these meetings,” he said.He added that it is increasingly being felt that “plenty of information is not education and students are not just a data bank”.
“The main aim of education is to bring out a good human being. It is the need of the hour to inculcate value education, life skills, experiential learning and physical fitness in our daily life. But the syllabus today is so grand that students don’t have time for anything else,” the minister said. He added that the point of reducing the burden was to make students learn the basic principles of subjects and teach them how to interpret and analyse for overall personality development.
To achieve this, the ministry has asked the NCERT to evaluate the present curriculum and decide what changes could be made.“This week, we will put on our website a request for suggestions from teachers, parents, educational experts, students and all concerned stakeholders in the field of education on reducing the syllabus of NCERT,” Javadekar said. After two months, he will review the suggestions and take measures to reduce the syllabus.Ministry sources said the changed syllabus could be implemented in the next two-three years.