Chennai: After implementation of common syllabus system, Tamil Nadu witnessed a surge of CBSE schools as the number of schools more than doubled in the last five years.
At present, the state has more than 650 CBSE schools. In total 386 schools got no objection certificates to start new CBSE schools from the department of school education after implementation of common syllabus system, sources revealed.
“If schools are started at this speed, there will be a dearth of qualified and experienced faculty in CBSE schools. Syllabus wise there is not much difference between the common syllabus and CBSE. Faculty plays the key role in ensuring quality of education,” a senior official in the school education department said.
Until the introduction of common syllabus, the state had three different syllabuses for matriculation, Anglo-Indian and state board schools.
All major private schools uniformly opposed the implementation of the common syllabus in the state.
Now, after five years all the major group of schools has one or more than one CBSE school.
“It’s the parents who want their children to be admitted to CBSE schools, not the other way,” says N.Vijayan, chairman, Zion group of schools.
“Even at our group, parents give preference to CBSE school. CBSE syllabus has depth and their question pattern is different. They give importance to higher order thinking skills. Students can gain knowledge and their education is application- oriented. At the same time, the common syllabus is lacking in quality,” he said.
“Since the matriculation syllabus was on a par with the CBSE syllabus, many students graduated to higher studies seamlessly,” he claimed. Another senior official who requested anonymity said the main attraction with matriculation schools was the medium of instruction which was English.
Since all schools in the State have the same syllabus, these schools lost their edge. CBSE affiliation exactly gives that edge.
“Private schools are moving to CBSE syllabus just to show that they stand apart from the rest,” says P.B. Prince Gajendrababu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System.
He dismissed as baseless the allegation that the common syllabus was in poor quality. “There was no proof for that. They have not done any comparative study between the common syllabus and CBSE,” he said.
“In fact, the CBSE has implemented a new syllabus in 2005-06 based on the National Curriculum Framework 2005. Until 2010, there were very few private schools which showed interest in CBSE stream. Only after implementation of the common syllabus in 2010-11, they are talking about the quality of CBSE syllabus,” he added.
