Academicians, politicians divided over syllabus cut

Jaipur: The Central Board Secondary Education’s (CBSE) decision to slash syllabus has taken a political hue. The ruling Congress in the state has already called this move by the central government a mistake but the state BJP has claimed it is in favour of the students.
Due to pandemic, CBSE decided to remove various chapters on federalism, democracy, secularism, nationalism, citizenship, etc., from the syllabus.
Education minister Govind Singh Dotasra had on Thursday said that Centre’s decision to remove chapters which were the basis of recent election campaigns in the country, shows that BJP has accepted that its own ideology was at fault.
Hitting back at the Congress, former education minister Vasudev Devnani, in a press conference on Friday, said that the Centre has taken a commendable step to cut the curriculum in the interest of the students. “It is not right to see this matter through political eyes and the state government should give relief to the students of state board by doing the same. The Congress and its allies never believed in federalism. The Congress removed lessons related to revolutionaries like Veer Savarkar. The state government is still hopeful of reducing Pratap’s valour in the syllabus. So, the state government should not lecture anyone,” said Devnani.
Meanwhile, various academicians and legal experts in the state have criticized the decision taken by CBSE and said that some alternate solution should have been thought of.
Rajasthan High Court lawyer Prateek Kasniwal said that it is a policy decision which CBSE has been entitled to take but they should have followed some rationality. “We live in a democratic set-up and secularism is an important part of our society. I agree that due to special circumstances it is a necessary to reduce the syllabus but completely dropping such important topics is a mistake. They could have shortened the chapters instead,” said Kasniwal.
Commenting on the issue, Sudhir Raniwal, professor of physics at Rajasthan University, said that in these circumstances something had to be done. “Students need to learn about all subjects for their betterment. Instead of reducing the syllabus session, they should have been extended nationwide in every field,” said Raniwal.