After receiving criticism from various quarters for “selective trimming” of syllabi by 30% for the 2020-2021 academic year, the State government has asked the Karnataka Textbook Society (KTBS) to put the reduced and revised syllabi on hold “temporarily”.
Lesson units that deal with Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan, some sections on the Indian Constitution and entire lessons’ on Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed were dropped for classes six and seven in the reduced syllabi.
Sources in the Department of Public Instruction said that the office of Primary and Secondary Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar, had told the KTBS to “temporarily” put the revised syllabus on hold. They have been asked to relook into the matter and submit the report to Mr Suresh Kumar. The KTBS has received oral orders and are yet to receive written orders regarding this.
The syllabus was reduced to 120 working days for Classes 1-10 as many academic days are reduced for the 2020-2021 academic year due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The syllabus has been trimmed assuming that schools are going to reopen by September 1.
Besides receiving flak from teachers, private school managements, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar too had opposed the removal of lessons pertaining to Tipu Sultan.
The issue of lessons pertaining to Tipu Sultan have been under controversy last academic year and a committee set up by the department to study the possibility of dropping lessons on Tipu Sultan, following a demand by a section of BJP leaders was formed. However the committee had overruled this and said that it was “impossible” to study history of Mysuru without highlighting Tipu’s role.
While deleting some of the chapters, the department had said that many of them have been dropped as students study them in the higher classes, while some of the lessons dropped will be given as home assignments. The document specifying the details of the reduced syallabi had suggested alternate methods to make up for the loss of learning deleted chapters or units.
