Bringing a relief and smile to school students, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on February 24 said that the current NCERT school syllabus will be halved from the 2019 session.
Javadekar said that the school syllabus was more than that of BA and B Com courses, and it needed to be reduced by half so that students get time for other activities for their all-round development.
“At the stage of development of cognitive skills, students need to be given full freedom. I have asked NCERT to reduce the syllabus by half and it will be effective from the 2019 academic session,” Javadekar said in an interview to the state-run Rajya Sabha TV.
“Without examination, there is no competition and no target. There must be an element of competition for better outcomes,” he said. If a student fails in March, he would get another chance in May. If a student flunks both the times, then only he/she would be detained, he added.
Throwing light on the poor quality of teachers resulting in poor learning outcomes, he said, “The basic task of teachers is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of students and mentor them accordingly.”
