While addressing a gathering at the inauguration of 4th ‘Kala Utsav’, MHRD Minister announced that the syllabus will be reduced so that students can dedicate their time on their other talents. “To provide enough time to students to develop their talents, the syllabus is proposed to be reduced by half the present syllabus”, said the Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar.
‘Present day students are bogged down so much in studies right from eighth standard onwards that they have no time to spare for manifesting and nurturing their talents,’ he added further.
The National Competition is held, annually, for promoting arts among school students in vocal music, instrumental music, dance and painting. Over 370 students of all states (except Karnataka) and Union Territories are participating in the four-day event.
Recently, the ministry had also announced limitation on weight of the school bags according to the classes. It had also asked schools not to assign homework to students of classes 1 and 2.
Earlier this year, Mr. Javadekar had announced that the ministry has decided to reduce the NCERT syllabus by half from 2019 academic session. Expressing concern he said that “school syllabus was more than that of BA and B.Com courses and it needed to be reduced by half so that students get time for other activities for their all-round development. “I have asked NCERT to reduce the syllabus by half and it will be effective from the 2019 academic session,” he had said in an interview.
The government had also invited suggestions from the teachers, headmasters, school management, educationalists, parents, students, NGO’s, experts and public representatives and those who had the perspicacity in this public-spirited decision of the government. It had received 15000 suggestions from the stakeholders.