New Delhi, July 9: Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal responded to the mounting criticism over slashing of certain chapters from the CBSE annual syllabus for year 2020-21. Pokhriyal, in a series of social media posts, accused the critics of attempting to create a "false narrative" over a one-time adjustment being made by the Board in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CBSE, in consultation with the HRD Ministry, had on Tuesday announced a 30 percent reduction in its annual syllabus for Classes 9-12 as a cover up for the time lost due to suspension of classes amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The decision, however, drew flak from certain quarters as the chapters dismissed include those on secularism, federalism and nationalism, among others.

According to Pokhriyal, the criticism is misconstrued as such adjustments were not only made for social sciences, but other subjects as well. "It is our humble request: Education is our sacred duty towards our children. Let us leave politics out of education and make our politics more educated," he said.

Keeps Politics Aside: HRD Minister

"There has been a lot of uninformed commentary on the exclusion of some topics from CBSE syllabus. The problem with these comments is that they resort to sensationalism by connecting topics selectively to portray a false narrative," he said.

"As CBSE has clarified, schools have been advised to follow the NCERT Alternate Academic Calendar, and all the topics mentioned have been covered under the same Academic Calendar. The exclusions are merely a 1-time measure for exams, due to the COVID19 pandemic," the Minister added.

"The only aim is to relax the stress on students by reducing the syllabus by 30%. This exercise has been carried out following the advice & recommendations of various experts and considering the suggestions received from educationists through our #SyllabusForStudents2020 campaign (sic)," Pokhriyal tweeted.

"While it is easy to misconstrue exclusion of 3-4 topics like nationalism, local government, federalism, etc. and build a concocted narrative, a wider perusal of different subjects will show that this exclusion is happening across subjects," he stated.

"To give a few examples, the topics excluded in Economics are Measures of Dispersion, Balance of Payments Deficit, etc, topics excluded in Physics are Heat Engine  and Refrigerator, Heat Transfer, Convection and Radiation among others," Pokhriyal noted.

"Similarly, some of the excluded topics in Maths are Properties of Determinants, Consistency, Inconsistency, and Number of Solutions of System of Linear Equations by Examples and Binomial Probability Distribution," the Minister further said.

Notably, the routine school operations were suspended since mid-March, with the outbreak of coronavirus in India. Since then, several states also announced the cancellation of academic year-end examinations and promote the students based on average grades.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 09, 2020 12:51 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).