Let's leave politics out of education: HRD Minister rejects criticism over CBSE's decision to reduce syllabus

New Delhi [India], July 9 (ANI): Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Thursday rejected criticism over alleged conspiracy in CBSE's decision to reduce the syllabus of schools due to COVID-19 outbreak and urged the critics to "leave politics out of education".
"There has been a lot of uninformed commentary on the exclusion of some topics from #CBSESyllabus. The problem with these comments is that they resort to sensationalism by connecting topics selectively to portray a false narrative," the Union Minister tweeted.
"It is our humble request:#Education is our sacred duty towards our children. Let us leave politics out of education and make our politics more educated," he added.
Talking about the portions reduced by the CBSE Board, the Union Minister informed, "In #Biology, portions of Mineral Nutrition, Digestion & Absorption have been excluded. It can be no one's argument that these topics have also being excluded by malice or some grand design which only partisan minds can decipher."
"Similarly, some of the excluded topics in #Maths are Properties of Determinants, Consistency, Inconsistency, and Number of Solutions of System of Linear Equations by Examples and Binomial Probability Distribution," he said.
"To give a few examples, the topics excluded in #Economics are Measures of Dispersion, Balance of Payments Deficit, etc, topics excluded in #Physics are Heat Engine & Refrigerator, Heat Transfer, Convection & Radiation among others," the Minister tweeted.
"While it is easy to misconstrue exclusion of 3-4 topics like nationalism, local government, federalism, etc. and build a concocted narrative, a wider perusal of different subjects will show that this exclusion is happening across subjects," the Union Minister said on the micro-blogging site.
He also stated that this move of cutting down the syllabus has been taken to reduce the stress levels among students.
"The only aim is to relax the stress on students by reducing the syllabus by 30 per cent. This exercise has been carried out following the advice & recommendations of various experts and considering the suggestions received from educationists through our #SyllabusForStudents2020 campaign," he said.
The CBSE Board has reduced the syllabus up to 30 per cent for nearly 190 subjects from Classes 9 to 12. The new syllabus is only for board exams of the 2020-21 session. (ANI)