The West Bengal government has decided to reduce the syllabus of classes 10 and 12 for the academic year 2020-21 by 30-35%. The decision has been made because of the loss in classroom teaching due to the health emergency brought on by the Covid-19 outbreak. On the surface, the step seems a welcome one; however the devil lies in the details. To understand the stopgap measure and if it will have a long-term impact on students’ cognitive learning and their careers, News18 spoke to various stakeholders in the education fraternity.
Suranjan Das, vice chancellor of Jadavpur University, said, “The issue of syllabus cuts should also be looked at by all the agencies responsible for conducting competitive examinations across the country. Otherwise, students are likely to fall behind.”
On the other hand, the headmaster of Jadavpur Vidyapith, Parimal Bhattacharya, said, “During the pandemic, when classes cannot be held in schools, there is no other option but to reduce the syllabus. The syllabus of all the boards has been reduced. There is no doubt that students will have to face some problems. But in the time of pandemic, this has to be accepted.”
“This is true that students will have to face problems as the syllabus is reduced. But I hope that all the agencies that are responsible for the various competitive exams will take the students into consideration,” said Abhishek Majumder, chairman of the state syllabus committee.
The state government this week announced that the syllabus for secondary and higher secondary examinations would be cut by 30 to 35 per cent. In this case, the state students will not have to face too many problems, said Mahua Das, president of the Higher Education Parliament. “CBSE has already reduced the syllabus. Our syllabus has been reduced in line with the syllabus of CBSE, so that students don’t have to fall behind, especially in the case of competitive examinations. Thus, we do not think that students in the state will have to face a lot of problems in giving competitive exams. But at the same time students can also go through the portions of the syllabus that has been reduced before giving the exams,” she said.
The president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Kalyanmoy Ganguly said, “If the syllabus is reduced, the students will face some troubles. However, I think there is a need for more analysis on the issue.”
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