Chapters on the Non-Alignment Movement, the Cold War era, the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories, the chronicles of Mughal courts, and the industrial revolution have been dropped from the CBSE Class 11 and 12 political science syllabus.
From the Class 10 social science syllabus, CBSE has dropped the topic “impact of globalisation on agriculture” from a chapter on ‘Food Security’.
Excerpts from the translations of two Urdu poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz have also been dropped from the section ‘Religion, Communalism and Politics – Communalism, Secular State’.
Chapters on ‘democracy and diversity’ have been dropped from the syllabus as well.
WHAT OFFICIALS SAID
When queries about the reason behind these topics being dropped from the syllabus, officials said that the exclusions were part of the syllabus rationalisation process and were in line with NCERT recommendations.
MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE DROPPED CHAPTERS
The CBSE Class 11 history syllabus doesn’t include the chapter ‘Central Islamic Lands’ anymore. As per the description in last year’s syllabus, this chapter talks about the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories and its impact on economy and society.
It also focused on the different facets of Islam in terms of how it emerged, the rise of the caliphate and empire building.
The CBSE Class 12 history syllabus also omitted the chapter ‘The Mughal Court: Reconstructing Histories through Chronicles’. It looked at the chronicles of Mughal courts to reconstruct the social, religious and cultural history of the Mughals.
CBSE LIKELY TO REVERT TO SINGLE BOARD EXAM
It is likely that CBSE will revert to a single board exam format from 2022-23 onwards as the syllabus that has been shared with CBSE schools hints at the same.
Board officials said last week that the decision to conduct two board exams had been taken because of the Covid-19 pandemic and a final call o board exams would be taken further down the line.
“CBSE annually provides curriculum for classes 9 to 12 containing academic content, syllabus for examinations with learning outcomes, pedagogical practices and assessment guidelines,” said a senior board official as per PTI.
“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,” the official added.
EARLIER DECISIONS TO DROP CERTAIN TOPICS
CBSE has dropped certain topics and chapters from the syllabus before as well as part of its decision to rationalise the syllabus.
In 2020, a major controversy had erupted when CBSE said that chapters on demonetization, federalism, citizenship, nationalism, and secularism in the Class 11 political science textbook would not be considered while assessing students even though schools were given the freedom to teach the same if they wished.
The ‘deleted’ topics were then restored in the 2021-22 academic session and still remain a part of the CBSE syllabus.
This article first appeared on indiatoday.in