New Delhi: In a fresh controversy, the Central Board of Secondary Education has tossed out chapters on the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories, the chronicles of Mughal courts, the Non Aligned Movement, the Cold War era and the industrial revolution from the history and political science syllabi of classes 11 and 12.
The class 10 syllabus has also been altered. The topic on “impact of globalisation on agriculture ‘ has also been dropped.The changes are a huge setback for poetry lovers as translated excerpts from two poems in Urdu by Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the ‘Religion, Communalism and Politics Communalism, Secular State’ section have been excluded this year.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has also dropped from the course content chapters on ‘democracy and diversity’. Officials maintained that the changes are part of rationalisation of syllabus and are in alignment with recommendations by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The dropped chapter “Central Islamic Lands” in the class 11 history syllabus talks about the rise of Islamic empires in the Afro-Asian territories and its implications for economy and society, according to the description in last year’s syllabus.
Similarly, in the class 12 history syllabus, the dropped chapter titled ‘The Mughal Court: Reconstructing Histories through Chronicles’ examined the chronicles of Mughal courts to reconstruct the social, religious and cultural history of the Mughals.
The syllabus shared with schools for the 2022-23 academic session also hints at the board’s decision to revert to a single-board examination in a session.While the two term examination was announced as a one-time special measure in view of the COVID pandemic, the board officials recently said that a final decision would be taken in due course, depending on the situation.
“CBSE annually provides curriculum for classes 9 to 12 containing academic content, syllabus for examinations with learning outcomes, pedagogical practices and assessment guidelines. Considering the feedback of stakeholders and other prevailing conditions, the board is in favour of conducting the annual scheme of assessment at the end of the academic session 2022-23 and the curriculum has been designed accordingly,” a senior board official said.
This is not the first time the board has dropped from the syllabus certain chapters which have been part of the curriculum for decades.
