PSEB decision to cut down English, social science syllabus hailed

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, August 19

After the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) on Thursday circulated a notice regarding the reduction of syllabus for English and Social Studies from Classes VI to X, students as well as teachers heaved a sigh of relief and expressed their relief over the lessening of the syllabus.

English and Social Studies are the two main subjects in which the students had been failing the most. The Class X results declared in May were the proof that the Education Department was in urgent need to pull up socks. As a result, it was decided to cut down at least 40 per cent of the syllabus of English and 20 per cent of social science.

In the subject of English for Class X, earlier there were 24 chapters, which have now been reduced to 14. The chapters were deleted on the grounds that they were lengthy and there was also repetition of text.

Now, all four aspects of English like, reading, writing, listening and speaking will be taken care of. The teachers have been asked to focus on detailed understanding rather than promoting rote-learning among students.

The syllabus of Social Science has also been reduced to 20 per cent without making any changes in the history portion.

Balvir Kumar, an expert in English, said after having gone through the revised syllabus, he concluded that only additional chapters which were merely based on theory have been removed, no portion of grammar has been touched.

Kulwinder Kaur, a Class X student said, “All of us are happy with the news. The syllabus earlier was too much and we were not able to give much time to detailed reading, but now, we can devote much time towards understanding the concepts”.