Background:-
- Schools in India are mainly columned primarily into 4 boards of education, namely CBSE (Central Board of Central Education), CISCE (Council of Indian School Certificate Examination), State Boards and IB (International Baccalaureate). In total, there are 41 boards of education throughout India.
- These different boards of education have different syllabuses, which creates a knowledge gap among the school students. To curate this gap, syllabuses of every board for the Indian schools is being brought at par.
Pros:-
- The Article 21A of the Constitution has the RTE (Right to Education) Act says that every child in the age of 4 to 16 should be given free and compulsory education. But the question lies here is that, Are they getting quality education? To keep a check on that, a common syllabus throughout the country is required. This will help all the students to be at par with education.
- With a common syllabus throughout the country, no student will lag behind in education and hence, this will help them prepare better for competitive examinations or admission tests beyond school level for the outside world.
- Politics, in some cases influence the education system which is very unfair for the students. Some state boards prefer the admission of students from their own region and willingly keep the seats of colleges and universities occupied for students passing their 12th standard from their state boards. The top ranked universities like the Delhi University (DU) has kept almost 80% of their seats reserved for the state’s students apart from the sky-reaching cut-offs. With a common syllabus, neither the political parties, nor the state boards will get much preference as the students all over the country will get a chance for scoring grades and engulfing knowledge in equal amounts.
- The rat race for marks and grades will be given a fair look and an even opportunity with a common syllabus. The probability of having a noticeable difference among the scores of different boards of education will lessen with the common set of syllabus into play.
- A common syllabus in the scholastic level can be a measure taken towards the development of the Uniform civil code.
- A common syllabus would also mean that there would be no discrimination regarding quality education on the basis of caste, creed, social, religious beliefs or economic backgrounds. It will provide an unbiased ground of learning and development of the young ones, which may turn out to be very beneficial in future.
- At present, some of the state boards are not updating their syllabus frequently as per the changes in society. This loophole will be eliminated with the introduction of uniform syllabus in India.
Cons:-
- Students may miss learning things specific to their region and their culture. This can be a threat to diversity.
- Current school students might get affected or stressed out on a sudden change of syllabus. An abrupt change in the syllabus may hamper the stability of a student with the academics which will not be a good turn.
- Most of the students in schools rely a lot on the previous year’s questions before appearing for a test. With the new set of syllabus, those old questions will be redundant and that can degrade the preparation of the examinee.
- A new set of syllabus will bring in more workload on teachers and parents too. Modification of old notes, going thoroughly through the syllabus all over again, preparing new questions, etc will be popping up, and it may even be time consuming.
Conclusion:-
Though the government has been trying to put up with equality in education, the barriers have been inevitable till date. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Act 2011 stated that the legislature has to find out a better system of school education. A common syllabus seems to be a wise option, but it is yet to be implemented over the entire country.
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