Tag: CBSE

CBSE Syllabus: Disadvantages For Parents And Children, Advantages For Schools And Publishers

NCERT syllabus is pre-historic and aimless. But, it does exist. CBSE syllabus is even worse off. It is non-existent and a free-for-all. On the face of it, the students seemingly study and of course, get through the entrance exams. However, CBSE syllabus disadvantages for parents and children, advantages for schools and publishers, are massive.

The Non-Existent CBSE Syllabus

CBSE is the Central Board of Secondary Education, a legacy of the British era, set up in 1929. CBSE’s only responsibility is to conduct exams of XII and X and give affiliation to schools for just these two exams. CBSE does not get into the syllabus. That’s not the job of CBSE at all. It has no say in the syllabus taught in the CBSE affiliated schools.

CBSE does recommend the NCERT syllabus for Board exams, and if there is even one private CBSE-affiliated school that teaches NCERT syllabus then elephants fly, whales walk and birds swim. CBSE has zilch control over the private schools, not just for syllabus but for any purpose – including the fees, teachers’ salaries, management, the weight of school bags etc.

For us, education has become synonymous with exams. The most important exams are the Board exams, XII and X, conducted by CBSE. So, we presume that the syllabus studied for the CBSE exams is the CBSE syllabus. Just that, CBSE has got nothing to do with the syllabus of these exams or for that matter any exam.

CBSE has no association with exams of standards I-IX and XI. Now, because the parents incorrectly presumed the CBSE syllabus for the board exams, the erroneous presumption goes further. And, the syllabus for the other standards also gets called the CBSE syllabus. In reality, the CBSE has no role in the syllabus of I-IX and XI, similar to X and XII.

So, what do the students study? They seem to study quite a lot, after all. Enter the CBSE syllabus disadvantages for parents and children, advantages for schools and publishers.

Disadvantages For Parents

As adults, parents haggle for discounts all around. When it comes to the child’s syllabus books, there is no discount, only inflated MRPs. The parents’ pay the astronomical sum assuming that the child is getting a quality education and this IS the biggest disadvantage for the parents.

The price of the syllabus in the private CBSE affiliated schools has no link with the learning inside the books. The private publishers’ puts in the stuff irrelevant to the child’s age-appropriateness/real-life learning to make the pages. Simultaneously, they also glaringly miss out on hands-on and experiential life learning syllabus components.

As a result of this purposeless syllabus, the child gets ill-prepared for real life, gets burdened with unnecessary frills and loses out on childhood. And, all the time parents think that their child is being educated. Leave aside value-for-learning as a parents’ notion, the high-priced syllabus is throwing good money for no apparent benefit, rather causing harm to the child.

Advantages For Schools

You get to carry the logo of the Government – CBSE. Nobody will distrust you. You get to flout the CBSE directive of using the NCERT syllabus. Nobody will hold you to task, neither CBSE nor NCERT, rather nobody will even care to know about it. You can sell a syllabus of your liking and at your price. Nobody dares question you.

For the private hospitals, there is a danger of a patient dying and they get bad publicity. For the private schools, there is absolutely no risk. The brain-washed students tell no tales. The gullible parents are at the mercy lest the child’s future will be ruined. No better business in India than running a private CBSE affiliated school.

Advantages For Publishers

There ain’t no regulations, nobody to supervise, no accountability, rather no deliverables, other than the inflated MRPs. The private publishers for the private CBSE affiliated schools have absolute price-control, a monopoly market, loyal customers of unquestioning parents and students, who don’t even know what hit them.

I am not casting any aspersions on private publishers. I am just saying that it is extremely difficult for any business operating in the environment mentioned above to operate in a manner that is beneficial to anyone, other than themselves. There is no incentive at all to let a child be a child and enjoy childhood, rather perverse reasons to burden the child with more and more books.

Disadvantages For Children

The CBSE is pedalling exams, private publishers’ are hawking their syllabus, the schools are merrily collecting their profit margin on the syllabus books, the parents are blissfully unaware that their child has no learning from this purported syllabus. Who the heck is bothered about the child and the child’s learning?

The whole process sucks the childhood out of the children, much before they are ready with no ensuing gain. The kids get locked up in the four walls of the classrooms/screens of the apps as the syllabus keeps multiplying with no learning at the end of it. Can there be any advantages to children in this entire muddle?

The Free-For-All CBSE Syllabus

IGCSE/IB boards endorse their syllabus. CBSE doesn’t bother with such finer points. Hence, the CBSE syllabus disadvantages for parents and children, advantages for schools and publishers. Of course, the situation is not that dismal as I have made it out to be. It is a work-in-process; we shall surely reach there once, if not now.

We, as a society, care about exams and marks. What importance is a trivial syllabus? CBSE, too, cares about board exams only. What value is getting into a frivolous syllabus? The government of India comes up with a glorious New Education Policy (NEP). Why get hung up about an inconsequential aspect of the syllabus?

In the mean-while, the private publishers and the private CBSE affiliated schools, carry on with their free-for-all syllabus. Our children keep getting educated, wonder how/what is this learning?

What are your views on the subject of the CBSE syllabus disadvantages for parents and children, advantages for schools and publishers?

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert, just growing up together with my children. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

CBSE Syllabus: Non-Existent And Free-For-All

The important aspect of a child’s learning is the syllabus that the child studies. The one that is backed by the Government of India, has a pan-India presence and sets the benchmark is the CBSE syllabus. A parent would presume that the study of the CBSE syllabus leads to success for students in entrance exams. Well, it is spectacularly off the mark. There is nothing called a CBSE syllabus.

CBSE Syllabus: Non-Existent

CBSE is the Central Board of Secondary Education. It was set up by the British in 1929 and is a legacy of the colonial era. CBSE was reconstituted in 1962 and was given the task of instituting an all India Higher Secondary Examination setting up a model that the State Boards might emulate and meet the needs of students whose parents moved from one state to another. That’s about it.

The CBSE’s only responsibility is to conduct exams of XII and X. Now, to conduct exams, students are needed. The schools have the students. So, the CBSE gives affiliations to schools for their students to appear for XII and X – the so-called Board exams. Hence, CBSE’s tasks become two – conducting the two Board exams and giving affiliation to schools for these two exams.

CBSE does not get into the syllabus. That’s not the job of CBSE at all. The tab of the syllabus on CBSE’s website leads to NCERT’s website. For parents, education has become synonymous with exams. The most important exams are the Board exams, which are the CBSE exams. So, we presume that the syllabus studied for the CBSE exams is the CBSE syllabus, which is a misnomer.

It gets even trickier for the standards I-IX. CBSE has got nothing to do with exams of all these. Now, because the parents incorrectly presumed the CBSE syllabus for the board exams, the erroneous presumption goes further. And, the syllabus for the other standards also gets called the CBSE syllabus. In reality, the CBSE has no role in the syllabus or the exams of I-IX.

The Broken Link Of CBSE – Affiliated Schools – NCERT

A parent might think that CBSE is prescribing the NCERT syllabus, which is also a Government of India agency, so it’s fine calling it a CBSE syllabus. After all, what’s in a name? Therein lies the catch. The CBSE recommends the NCERT syllabus. But, the schools don’t need to follow the same.

Wait a moment. This is getting confusing. The schools are CBSE schools and it is expected that they follow a CBSE, ok ok, an NCERT syllabus. And, that CBSE schools are not doing it!!! Well, the base assumption itself is incorrect that these schools are CBSE schools. To be precise, these are CBSE-affiliated schools.

A CBSE-affiliated school means that its students are eligible for CBSE Board exams. That’s it. Nothing more. CBSE has got nothing to do with the fees/academics/functioning of the school in any manner. Yes, CBSE does prescribe the NCERT syllabus. However, the school’s autonomy means that it is free to choose its pedagogical tools and every school does absolutely that.

CBSE lays down affiliation bye-laws and has certain infrastructure requirements. But, it is not compulsory for the schools to follow the NCERT syllabus. Also, CBSE has no control over the school’s management. Rather, the CBSE and the school are unrelated till the X Board exam. So, the school is free to choose its own syllabus. And this is never the NCERT syllabus.

CBSE Syllabus: A Free-For-All

Then, what do the students study in CBSE-affiliated schools? After all, they seem to study quite a lot. And, why can’t it be called a CBSE syllabus?

Several publishers come up with textbooks that are taught in these CBSE-affiliated schools. Each publisher has its own interpretation of the NCERT textbooks and what they want the children to study. The linkage with NCERT is slack and these publishers tend to cover stuff well beyond the NCERT textbooks. They are not bound by the curriculum framework or any such paraphernalia.

As all these publishers have separate versions, with few things in common and few not so, it is chaos. It is a free-for-all. There is no binding together of these disparate textbooks brought into existence by different publishers with varied objectives. Hence, there is nothing called a CBSE syllabus. As these publishers target more than the capability of the child, the students end up studying a lot.

Difficult to believe? What do you think is the price of an NCERT textbook, any subject, from Grade I-VII? It is Rs. 65/-. What is the price of a textbook of any of the private publishers?  It will not be less than Rs. 200/-. At times, it can be even more than Rs. 300/-. Why such a huge price difference? Because there is nothing called a CBSE syllabus and it is a free-for-all.

The Harmful Effects

A parent might tend to believe that as long as the child is learning, how does it matter what syllabus the child is being taught? Why get into the needless detailing? After all, if it has been delivering till now, it should be fine. The mighty Indian education establishment will surely know what it is doing and even the CBSE Board i.e. the Government of India has seemingly no issues with that.

Well, we are made to believe that it works, whereas it is far from reality. The effects of the non-existent and free-for-all CBSE syllabus is highly damaging to the children and their future. Please read here how it negatively impacts the learning of our children (coming soon).

What are your thoughts on the CBSE syllabus? How have you seen it in action with your child?

PS:  I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert, just growing up together with my children. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

School And Board Exams Are Dead. Long Live School And Board Exams.

The Prime Minister of India is the lead decision-maker. The Who’s Who of Cabinet Ministers is participating. The Supreme Court of India is keeping a keen eye on the proceedings. The country is awaiting the result with bated breath. Finally, the result is out: The school and board exams have been failed, meaning cancelled.

The decision is termed ground-breaking by an adulating media. The Government of India gets full marks for considering the safety of children as paramount. All the stakeholders congratulate each other on the quid pro quo. CBSE, ICSE and the State Boards get busy conjuring up convoluted assessment criteria for the formality of passing the children.

So, from the perspective of children and parents isn’t the cancellation of school and board exams good, rather great? Well, it depends on how one perceives the difference it has made to the lives of children and parents, and as I see it, the difference is zilch, not even minimal. Yes, the kids don’t have to go through the drudgery, but apart from that, what’s the change?

Entrance Exams Matter

What matters for the admissions to the under-graduate courses of all hues: Entrance Exams.

What makes children and parents lose their night’s sleep and hard-earned money respectively: The coaching for entrance exams.

Where’s the money to be made by educational institutions/coaching centres: Entrance Exams.

What gets advertised in media as success stories of children: The performance in entrance exams.

Who’s the current deity of the Indian education system: Entrance Exams.

With so much control and power wielded by entrance exams, school and board exams were anyways on the back-burner. Ask any child/parent from 6th/7th grade onwards on what is the focus in the coming years and the answer will be: Entrance Exams. Yes, passing in school and board exams is mandatory with some crooked %, but that’s about it.

So, with a situation like this, how does the cancellation of only school and board exams help a child? Has JEE been scrapped? Does NEET go anywhere? Is there any change in CLAT status? Or for that matter, the plethora of entrance exams conducted separately by each of the private universities? Nope, no cancellations for any of these.

Does cancellation of school and board exams mean that children won’t have to go out during COVID-19? Well, they will have to go out – To write the entrance exams. Some novel coronavirus is this – it affects kids when they go out to write school and board exams, but is utterly harmless when they go out to write entrance exams.

If the Government of India/Supreme Court of India is so concerned about the well-being of children, why not cancel these entrance exams too? They won’t, they can’t. They understand that currently, the foundation of the education fiefdom is entrance exams and not the poor yesteryear’s star – school and board exams.

School and Board Exams Are Redundant

One might feel that the above narrative is needless nitpicking about the cancellation of exams. Rather, this shows the correct pecking order in the Indian education system and it is time that school and board exams are called out for what they are: An old relic with no significance/justification of its continued existence, out of sync with the changing times.

School and board exams have had no innovation ever since. It remains a celebration of a child’s excellence in rote learning. The COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to come up with options for the incompetent and futile ritual of yearly exams. Rather than coming up with alternatives, their cancellation conveys that we cannot look beyond them.

Now that they are cancelled, does any child/parent/school/board/education expert miss them? No. Has the cancellation led to any adverse impact on the future of anyone/anything? No. If something is not missed, if its absence doesn’t lead to any undesirable outcome, was it really serving any purpose for anyone at all?

This is not to say that entrance exams are any good. It is another case of the cure being worse than the disease. However, let’s take one step at a time.

Let’s agree that school and board exams were/are no good. As there has been a precedence of two school years without them, it is time to build on it by coming up with alternatives and not going back to the old junk. A flight of fantasy, anyone?

Long Live School And Board Exams

Knowing the Indian education system, its proclivity to control and resist change, it won’t be long before the school and board exams will be back.

Last heard, CBSE has come up with a brainwave of two Board exams for 2021-22. What else? The purposeless and aimless saga of school and board exams continues. Ministry of Education is all for striving to be renamed as Ministry of Examinations.

What are your views on this subject?

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert, just growing up together with my children. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.