Thiruvananthapuram: With just months to go before the next academic year, the announcement by Education Minister V Sivankutty on a 25 per cent reduction in the school syllabus has sparked widespread confusion and concern.

While the minister stated in Adoor that the syllabus for classes up to Class 10 would be reduced from next year, he also clarified that there would be no reduction in the actual content of the lessons.

“Students find it difficult to carry heavy textbooks, and teachers often struggle to complete the entire syllabus within the available time. The curriculum committee has also approved a reduction in the syllabus,” Sivankutty said.

Education experts, however, have cautioned that a sudden pruning of the syllabus could adversely affect the quality of the curriculum. The announcement also comes at a time when the government is implementing plans to improve educational standards and has initiated steps to raise the quality of examinations. Reducing a quarter of the syllabus, they argue, runs counter to these efforts.

Over the past two years, Kerala has rolled out a new curriculum in schools and introduced revised textbooks up to Class 10.

The curriculum revision was undertaken while taking into account the standards followed by the central syllabus. A key policy shift was moving away from the practice of using the same textbook for up to 10 years and instead revising textbooks annually to keep them current. However, this exercise was intended to update and refine content, not to cut down lessons.

Printing of the first volume of textbooks for the next academic year, which is less than four months away, is already underway. How the proposed reduction can be implemented at this stage has emerged as a major practical challenge. Limiting the cuts to the second volume alone would be unscientific. Given the situation, the only feasible option would be to issue instructions specifying certain portions of the textbooks that need not be taught.

Meanwhile, the stance of the new government that will assume office is also expected to play a crucial role in shaping the final decision.

No decision yet by curriculum committee
There had been complaints that the content in the new textbooks—particularly Social Science for Classes 9 and 10 and Basic Science for Class 8—was too extensive to be completed within the academic year. Against this backdrop, discussions on reducing the syllabus load were held in the curriculum committee.

However, it is learnt that the committee had not decided to implement a 25 per cent reduction in the syllabus in the immediate next academic year. With no final decision having been taken, the printing of the new textbooks prepared last year has been initiated this year as well, without any changes.