In the wake of a pandemic outbreak, the students worldwide have been enduring the upshots of Covid-19. They have been divested of their diurnal school lives, which is an integral part of a person's life journey. To shrink the unwanted pressure upon kids, CBSE Board decided to drop 30% of their syllabus to make up for the academic loss caused by the virus and the subsequent closure of schools.
However, this decision spurred a wide range of opinions. These came up after CBSE released the list of chapters that will be eliminated for the academic year 2020-21. The deletions include Democracy and Diversity, Federalism, Citizenship, Nationalism, and Secularism, among others in social sciences.
As for Economics and Business Studies, the significant chapters of Demonetisation and GST have been removed from the syllabus. Even though the syllabus of other subjects (like Mathematics, Physics, Hindi, and English) has also been reduced, there were varied repercussions for only these particular lessons.
While CBSE claimed that it was relevant to omit the problematic chapters, there's another side to this coin's face. On one hand, several professors and academicians have declared that it's an "overstep" by the CBSE and that dropping chapters out of the syllabus should instead have been the call of NCERT's authors.
On the other hand, various politicians and political parties anticipate a political agenda behind this decision, as they see this as a way to infuse fascist propaganda in the minds of genuine children, by calling it a part of some "bigger conspiracy." But all in all, it has gotten a massive backlash by the majority.
One common ground amongst all of the opposition is the intelligible fact that these chapters are foundational to one's understanding of how a democratic nation should function and have a long-term impact upon a child's learnings. Even though the board has declared a one-time measure only applicable to this academic year (2020-21), the opposition has still slammed the judgment with cogent counter-arguments.
As it's apparent, it's uneasy about differentiating between the 'important' and the 'less-important' chapters. Hence, stating that there could have been other chapters up for the process of elimination would be a controversial stand to take. Diminution of the syllabus was the least a board could have done to mitigate coronavirus's impact upon students. There are a few chapters in every theoretical subject whose practicality is something we can witness by our own eyes.
Democracy and demonetization are just a few stated examples of the same. A political science subject is incomplete without the comprehension of Secularism and Federalism, given the fact that these are the pillars of Indian democracy. Eliminating these would be robbing a child from their much-needed education. Considering that the high-school children are the ones who would lead the world in the upcoming years, we unquestionably can't let them be unaware of the basics.
In conclusion, we hope that this decision is overturned. In the unfortunate case of that not happening, it'd be incredible if the students take an interest in giving these a read themselves. As CBSE mentioned, these chapters would remain in their books, just not in their syllabus. The previous chapters are the ones that make a person an informed citizen of this country.
At this fragile time, we need to teach the values of being an enlightened patriot, now more than ever. It's safe to say that this could only be possible if the child is being educated towards the same.
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