On July 25, the state education department announced a reduction of 25 per cent syllabus from Class 1 to Class 12 in the Maharashtra state board for the current academic year. The decision was made on the background of the Covid-19 pandemic leading to lesser number of online teaching hours to students.
This decision has now garnered a mixed response from educations experts and organisations, some of who back the reduction while some question the merit in the reduction.
Welcoming this decision, Kiran Sutar, state primary teachers association secretary said, “We welcome this decision taken by the state education department, as already our teachers are overburden by various Covid-19 duties. They need to complete this year’s syllabus for their students. As the schools and colleges are shut, the classroom hours are also reduced as we cannot take long teaching hours on online mode. Through reduced syllabus teachers can now teach only the important part of that subject and complete this year’s syllabus.”
On the other hand, Vasant Kalpande, education expert and former chairperson of the Maharashtra state board, called this syllabus reduction unnecessary.
“Doing this kind of reduction in the syllabus was absolutely unnecessary and teachers are the ones who are given the most freedom in our country at least for teaching. It was their autonomy and by reducing the syllabus students may suffer. In each standard syllabus, there are some important chapters to be covered like in mathematics, science and even in languages,” Kalpande said.
{{/usCountry}}“Doing this kind of reduction in the syllabus was absolutely unnecessary and teachers are the ones who are given the most freedom in our country at least for teaching. It was their autonomy and by reducing the syllabus students may suffer. In each standard syllabus, there are some important chapters to be covered like in mathematics, science and even in languages,” Kalpande said.
{{/usCountry}}According to Kalpande, teachers while teaching, even online, could have decided for themselves what to teach and what not to teach. The process of reduction of the syllabus was unnecessary and was not at all needed.
Whereas parents are a bit relaxed by this decision, Archana Pali, a mother of two children said, “My son is in class 9 and daughter in class 5. We need to plan for their online school lectures and then for their home studies. Due to Covid-19 schools are closed but now there is more burden on children and also on us to manage their studies at home. It is good to know that for this academic year syllabus has been reduced, so we hope that there will be less pressure on our children.”