Reduction of the syllabus likely for TN board students this year too

After the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) deciding to reduce the syllabus by about 30% for the students studying from Class IX to Class XII this year due to COVID-19 lockdown, the Tamil Nadu government is likely to truncate the curriculum, especially for State board exam students.

In 2020, the State government here had reduced the syllabus for Class 10 and 12 reduced by 40 pc due to the closure of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

A senior official from the School Education Department, seeking anonymity, said that the expert committee, which was constituted to look into the issues related to schools and their functioning, was discussing whether the reduce the syllabus for this year too as the schools for Class IX to Class XII is expected to be opened only from September.

Stating that usually, the schools would be reopened in June every academic year, he said "however, this year also the schools could not be opened in time due to pandemic situation".

Pointing out that the students have lost three academic months this year, the official said "after getting feedback from the teachers and parents, the authorities were planning not to put the burden on the students to cover entire portions".

"The panel will work out the process to derive the percentage of the syllabus that has to be reduced", he said adding "the decision would also vary from time to time depending upon the functioning of the schools".

However, the official said that once the schools were reopened the phase of the teaching to cover the portions will also be calculated before reducing the curriculum. "Looking into the situation that the schools were allowed to reopen from September one, the percentage of syllabus reduction might be about between 10% and 20%", he added.

Tamil Nadu Teachers Association President P K Ilamaran said that his forum has given representation to the government to reduced the syllabus by around 20%. He said that the reduction of the syllabus will largely benefit the government school students as they do not have online classes as it was done in private institutions this year.

"In addition, we will also request the authorities to divide the academic year into two terms as it was done for the CBSE students", he said.