HRD to seek suggestions for NCERT curriculum to reduce burden on students

The HRD Ministry has decided to seek suggestions from various stakeholders on which portions of the NCERT curriculum can be done away with to reduce the burden on students as the current syllabus was only making them examination driven, minister Prakash Javadekar said today.
The reduction of syllabus to up to half will be done in the next two to three years and the curriculum will be revamped to include physical education, value education and life skills education, the Union Human Resource Development Minister said here.
"We have asked NCERT to evaluate the present curriculum and decide what can be done away with and what can be retained.

"The Ministry will put out this week on its website the request for suggestions from teachers, parents, educational experts, students and all concerned stakeholders in the field of education on reducing the syllabus," Javadekar told reporters.
The minister said that after two months he will review the suggestions and take definite measures to reduce the syllabus.
The decision by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry to reduce the syllabus has been taken after consultations during in six workshops held across the country in which teachers, education experts, NGOs working in the sector and representatives from various state governments participated.

"Today syllabus is so cramped that students read, mug up and appear for examinations. We are only producing examination driven students. Plenty of information is not education and students should not be just data banks and dictionaries.

"We have decided that we must not pack our syllabus with more and more things and see what can be stashed. It is the need of the hour to inculcate value education, life skills, experiential learning and physical fitness in our daily life," he said.
The idea to reduce the burden is to make students learn the basic principles of various subjects, teach them how to interpret and analyse for overall personality development, Javadekar said.