CBSE changes curriculum for class IX, class XI students; withdraws English Selective subject from both

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) issued a letter dated March 9, 2018, in which it has discontinued two electives for Class IX students and three for class XI students.

The educational board is taking this step to ensure that education and learning become more job-oriented than anything else. The circular regarding the same has been posted on the official website of the board, www.cbseacademic.nic.in.

Reportedly, the board has also sent reminders that English Communicative, which could be earlier elected by the students who were stepping into class 9 in all the CBSE-affiliated schools, will be discontinued from the upcoming academic session of 2018-2019.

The CBSE had also dropped several running subjects, and in place of them, introduced new subjects in the academic curriculum.

The subjects which are discontinued for class 9 are English Communicative (code 101), Information and Communication Technology (code 166), and e-Publishing and e-Office (code 354, code 454).

The Vocational Elective subjects discontinued for class 11 include Dance- Mohiniyattam (code 062), Multimedia and Web Technology (code 067), and English Elective CBSE (code 101). In place of these three subjects, class 11 students get introduced to three new subjects, namely, Agriculture (code 068), Fashion Studies (053), and Mass Media Studies (code 072).

According to the board, the students who are currently pursuing these subjects will continue to study them in class 10 and class 12 respectively, but the new session will not have them.

Also Read: CBSE Boards 2018: Error in class 10 English question paper leads to confusion in students, panic among teachers

Some more minor changes have also been made in the 2018-2019 academic session. Sanskrit Communicative (code 122) has been renamed as Sanskrit, with the same code, as prescribed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

The CBSE circular comes days after the Indian government said that there are plans of reducing the syllabus of the NCERT textbooks in the upcoming or later academic session. Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the idea to have quality education was predominant at the six workshops held by the ministry as well as during the meetings with the state educational officials.

Javadekar said, “A large number of NGOs, education experts, state government officers, and many teachers took part in these meeting. Students are not data banks. The main aim of education is to bring out a good human being. It is the need of the hour to inculcate value education, life skills, experiential learning and physical fitness in our daily life. The idea to reduce the burden is to make students learn the basic principles of various subjects. We have asked the NCERT to evaluate the present curriculum and decide what can be done away with and what should be retained.”