Hyderabad: An updated school syllabus will better prepare students for higher education. Educational experts say that while colleges and universities update their syllabi on a fairly regular basis to ensure that students are kept abreast of the latest development in the industry, schools do not do so, which leads to a gap in students’ understanding.
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) recently added big data analytics and bullet trains to its curriculum for engineering courses in order to equip students with knowledge about topics that are relevant at present.
Members of the Teachers’ Federation say that teachers at universities have the luxury of assigning their own reading material and tweaking the syllabus, but the same doesn’t hold true for school teachers.
S.A. Shukla, a Social science teacher, says, “We cannot assign extra reading material to students as there is already a large burden on them. Moreover, students will not read anything that is not a part of the syllabus. How else do we introduce newer themes?”
Teachers also believe that a revamped syllabus will allow them to better cater to the needs of different kinds of students. “In some countries, two exams are held for a single subject. More proficient students may choose to write the more advanced paper, while others can write the standard paper. This system ensures that students are not stressed out,” says Anitha Suresh, a Math teacher.
