Teachers give thumbs up to CBSE’s decision to use deleted topics in internal assessment

Most say they had already covered the topics that had been dropped

Teachers across the city welcomed Central Board of Secondary Education’s decision to allow affiliated schools, which have already covered topics that are not a part of its revised academic curriculum for classes 9-12, to include them in the 20 marks internal assessment.

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CBSE had recently revised the curriculum for Classes 9 to 12 and had reduced the syllabus by 30% due to the closure of schools amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

The principals of the affiliated schools had stated that teachers had already covered the eliminated topics, and majority of them were interlinked. The teachers had said that the board should have taken the decision in April when the new academic session had begun.

The board, in a recent circular, has clarified that if any school has covered topics that are not a part of the revised curriculum for the session 2020-21, they can include them in the internal assessment and the credit to students should be given for board exams 2021.

Now, the teachers have been directed to cover these topics by devoting less time and to inform students that these topics will be covered under internal assessment.

In Class 12 English, out of 16 chapters and six poems, six lessons and one poem have been deleted.

Anupam Baghria, post graduate teacher (PGT) in English at Nankana Sahib Public School, said, “We have already covered literature topics including ‘Poets and pancakes’, ‘The interview’; and poem ‘The roadside stand’ from Flamingo. From Vistas, ‘Journey to the end of earth’ and ‘The tiger king’ and in writing tasks, posters and speech have already been done in class. Now we will cover these topics in the internal assessment which is of 20 marks.”

She said, “In Class 10, we have covered first two poems—‘How to tell wild animals and trees from first flight’ and first two chapters from Footprints without feet- ‘The midnight visitor’ and ‘A question of trust’. In grammar, preposition and passive voice topics have been covered.”

In physics, the board has removed a few topics from selective chapters. Nishad, a physics teacher at BCM School, Basant Avenue, Dugri, said, “From few chapters, one or two topics have been removed. But in physics, every topic is interlinked with the other so it is very important to cover all topics, otherwise, students will not able to understand concepts. I am trying my best to cover all topics and will spend less time on those which have been removed.”

Out of 14 chapters, the board has removed various topics and experiments from 10 chapters.