‘Uninformed commentary’: Govt on row over cut in CBSE course

The cut has been made across subjects but what has run into controversy is the axing of concepts like federalism, social movements in India, colonialism, Partition, among other topics, in social sciences.

Union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Thursday, in a series of Twitter posts, hit back at critics who alleged a conspiracy in reducing the syllabus of the Central Board of Secondary Education amid the coronavirus pandemic. The minister said those criticising were resorting to “sensationalism” and were “uninformed”.

The cut has been made across subjects but what has run into controversy is the axing of concepts like federalism, social movements in India, colonialism, Partition, among other topics, in social sciences.

“There has been a lot of uninformed commentary on the exclusion of some topics from CBSE syllabus. The problem with these comments is that they resort to sensationalism by connecting topics selectively to portray a false narrative,” tweeted the minister this morning.

The Central minister urged the doubting Thomases to “leave politics out of education” and called upon them to make efforts to lift the political discourse by being “more educated”. While announcing the 30% cut in the CBSE syllabi for classes 9 to 12, the minister did say that core concepts will be retained.

“It is our humble request, education is our sacred duty towards our children. Let us leave politics out of education and make our politics more educated,” said Nishank.

Defending the charge against the government of being selective in dropping topics, the minister listed out in examples from other disciplines where topics have been excluded.

“In Biology, portions of Mineral Nutrition, Digestion & Absorption have been excluded. It can be no one’s argument that these topics have also being excluded by malice or some grand design which only partisan minds can decipher.

“Similarly, some of the excluded topics in Maths are Properties of Determinants, Consistency, Inconsistency, and Number of Solutions of System of Linear Equations by Examples and Binomial Probability Distribution,” the minister added.

Nishank underlined that the exclusions were a “one-time measure” due to coronavirus. “While it’s easy to misconstrue exclusion of 3-4 topics like nationalism, local govt, federalism and build a concocted narrative, a wider perusal of different subjects will show that this is happening across subjects,” he added.

The exercise has been carried out, the minister said, following the advice and recommendations of various experts and considering the suggestions received from educationists through the ministry’s “SyllabusForStudents2020 campaign”.