Nagpur: State’s school education minister Varsha Gaikwad said she will “look into” demands for another cut in SSC and HSC syllabi. Many academics feel there will be an increase in failure rate this summer as a majority of the students have not yet started attending physical classes and online classes are not accessible for all.
The board had reduced syllabus by 25% last year but with schools not even opening for physical classes at many places, schools feel the results will be negatively impacted.
Speaking to TOI, education minister Gaikwad said, “I will definitely study the issue and see what can be done.”
The minister added she was aware of the concerns raised by academics and also about the recently announced lockdown measures in various districts of Vidarbha. “Today only I enquired about Gadchiroli district but as of now there’s no lockdown there and schools are functioning. There are other districts where lockdown is in place and we are taking note of the same,” said Gaikwad.
Principals say that minimum 50% of the syllabus needs to be slashed. Ashok Gavhankar, general secretary of Vidarbha Junior College Teachers Association (VJUCTA), said government must think about students from marginalized sections of the society. “Over 70% of our students do not have access to online classes. Some don’t have smartphones, some can’t keep recharging it while in some villages in Gadchiroli there’s no mobile network,” he said.
“These students need to be taught in a classroom without which they don’t stand a chance,” said Gavhankar.
Ashnarayan Tiwari, principal of Adarsh Vidya Mandir (Gandhibagh), has been a vocal proponent of heavy syllabus reduction. “I am very happy to know the minister has taken cognizance of our demands and will at least study it. And I am sure that once she sees the practical issue of students being hard-pressed to cover up the syllabus, there will definitely be a second round of reduction,” he said.
Tiwari added the current reduction had also not been done in a proper way. “They kept the chapters intact but have taken out topics. That’s counter-productive because we end up teaching almost the same amount. Chapters should have been reduced. That’s the only way to reduce the academic load,” he said.