In view of the incapability to conduct the classes amid the spread of coronavirus pandemic, the HRD Ministry on Tuesday has announced to cut-down the syllabi of classes 9^th to 12^th by 30 per cent for the academic session 2020-21.

“Considering the importance of learning achievement, it has been decided to rationalize syllabus up to 30% by retaining the core concepts,” HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said on Twitter.

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“Looking at the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and the world, CBSE was advised to revise the curriculum and reduce course load for the students of Class 9th to 12th,” he added.

https://twitter.com/DrRPNishank/status/1280459805019136002

Union Minister informed that a few weeks ago, he invited suggestions from all educationists on the reduction of the syllabus on social media by using #SyllabusForStudents2020. He further told that we received more than 1.5K suggestions and expressed his gratitude to everyone for the overwhelming response.

The Union Minister said that the changes made in the syllabi have been finalised by the respective Course Committees with the approval of the Curriculum Committee and Governing Body of the Board.

“The revision of syllabi is a measure taken due to the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and at different parts of the world,” Ministry of HRD said in a statement.

The Heads of Schools and Teachers have been advised by the Board to ensure that the topics that have been reduced are also explained to the students to the extent required to connect different topics, it added.

However, the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for Internal Assessment and year-end Board Examination. Alternative Academic Calendar and inputs from the NCERT on transacting the curriculum using different strategies shall also be part of the teaching pedagogy in the affiliated schools.

For Elementary Classes (I-VIII) schools shall follow the Alternative Academic Calendar and Learning Outcomes specified by NCERT, the Ministry informed.

In a separate development, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ late on Monday tweeted that the UGC has revisited its earlier guidelines related to university examinations.

In view of the safety, career progression and placements of the students and their larger interests, after consulting the Union Home Ministry and Ministry of Health, he said it has been decided that “Intermediate semester students will be evaluated based on internal assessment” while “Evaluation of the terminal semester students, which was to be done through examinations in the month of July, will now be conducted by the end of September-2020”.