NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to reduce course load for the students in classes 9 to 12 in the ongoing session, Union Human Resources Development Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank announced on Tuesday.
This, he said, was being done looking at the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The reduction in the syllabus for the higher secondary classes is up to 30 percent.
The CBSE — country’s largest educational board — in a statement said that the prevailing health emergency as well as the efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in loss of classroom teaching due to closure of schools.
“Therefore, the board has decided to revise the syllabi for classes 9-12 for the academic session 2020-21,” CBSE said.
The board also said that the changes made in the syllabi have been finalised by the respective course committees with the approval of the curriculum committee and the governing body of the board.
“Considering the importance of achieving the level of learning, the syllabus has been rationalized to the extent possible by retaining the core concepts,” the board said on Tuesday.
It added that the school heads and teachers are being directed to ensure that the topics that have been reduced are also explained to the students to the extent required to connect different topics.
“However, the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for internal assessment and year-end examinations,” the board clarified.
Alternative academic calendar and inputs from the NCERT on transacting the curriculum using different strategies may also be part of the teaching pedagogy, said the board.
For elementary classes till class 8, schools have been instructed to follow the alternative academic calendar and learning outcomes specified by NCERT.