Nagpur: Senior academics feel that state government’s insistence on not trimming the SSC and HSC syllabus further will hurt students. The education minister’s recent statement to a media outlet on holding the board exam possibly in April or May is being interpreted by teachers as a move to not reduce the syllabus further more from the earlier 25% cut.
Ashok Gavhankar, principal of Raosaheb Thawre High School and Junior College, said, “The state government is not realizing the blunder it is about to commit. Schools are closed in many places and there is no way the course can be completed. When CBSE has reduced its syllabus by 30%, there is no logic behind the state board’s decision to cut it only by 25%. Even that would have worked if schools had opened in October.”
Zafar Khan, president of School Headmasters’ Charitable Association (SHCA), said, “The problem is that even the government is assuming that every student in the state has access to online classes. They have planned it by keeping students from decent socio-economic background in mind. It will be so unfair to my students who live in slums in Nagpur, have no access to online classes and then are forced to appear for SSC or HSC along with another who has been learning online throughout.”
Dilip Bose, a senior academic, said the syllabus has simply reduced topics. “They should have cut certain chapters and not topics. Now we have a situation where many topics can’t be taught unless the deleted topics are taught first,” said Bose, secretary of SHCA.
Sundeep Gaikwad, vice president of SHCA and principal of Mecosabagh Methodist High School, said, “When you are teaching topics, then the entire chapter has to be taught by default. Cutting out chapters would have been a better option. Now the situation is that many of our students have not had even a day’s schooling but within months they will be appearing for board exams.”