Revised SSLC Maths Syllabus and teacher’s dilemma

 

1. New Syllabus:

 

When the Karnataka state government announced in 2011 that state will follow the CBSE syllabus starting with revision of 8th Standard maths book in 2012 and concluding with revising 10th standard book in 2014, every one was wondering about what could be additions? In fact old syllabus itself was more or less on par with CBSE as can be seen from the comparison available at http://freeganita.com/en/topics.htm. However, when major changes were not effected in 8th and 9th standard books brought out in 2012 and 2013 respectively, except for one additional  topic in 9th standard on ‘ratio and proportion’, few would have thought the changes would be minimal in 10th standard. However, The revised syllabus for 10th standard, has few major topics added, such as ‘Probability’, ‘Trigonometry’, ‘Co-Ordinate geometry’. These topics add  to 78 additional pages out of 434 pages in the new 10th standard text book. In contrast, CBSE maths book for 10th standard has just 312 pages. Thus in one go, text book was revised to bring State maths syllabus so as to be  ‘at par’ with CBSE. In fact state syllabus has one extra chapter on ‘Permutation and combination’ which CBSE does not have.

 

2. Errors in lessons & review of lessons:

 

In addition to few  errors which have been passed off by the committee as typing mistakes,  lot need to be desired in  improving/simplifying contents. We will take only few of them as test cases:

In ‘Permutations’ lesson an attempt was made to introduce chapter with few illustrations which is a good move. However, illustrations are not solved at the end, thereby defeating the very purpose of introducing illustrations. Also, there is no need to define value of 0!  as equal to 1, when in reality, it could be proved to be so. In chapter on Quadratic equation, ax2+bx+c=0, no method was given to split the middle term ‘b’ for easy factorisation. Most of the teachers do explain in the class, the method to be followed for splitting of middle term.  These are just few examples. It is quite shocking that  text book authors  ignored mentioning these easy techniques, though the objective of the text book preparation as mentioned in the chairperson’s note  “development of abilities such as logical and abstract thinking, reasoning, analysing…etc..” which has not been put into practice.  The contents need thorough revision.

 

3. Lesson plan and load on Teachers:

 

For the fist time, the committee has prepared a teaching plan. As per this plan, given in the page VI of text book, lessons need to be completed in 180 periods. Do teachers have that many periods at their disposal? A quick calculation shows that number of periods/days available to a teacher in high school from June 1st to middle of February is around 260 days. From this, after subtracting general holidays, Term holidays, exam/test  days, school functions, and normal  absence of teachers(Leave, training..)  etc, one is left with just around 150 periods. Many of maths teachers whom I have interacted are of the opinion that what they get is just around 130 periods. Does any teacher have a magic wand to squeeze 180 periods of classes in to 130 periods? In addition, as per education department, teachers are to guide and evaluate 72 projects per student as pert of CCE. With this load how will a teacher cope up?.  Most of the government schools in non urban areas and private schools on an average have 50 students in a class. Can a maths teacher sincerely evaluate 72 projects per student in the allotted 130 periods?

With marks being the sole criteria for admissions in to higher classes why so much stress on CCE carrying 20 marks when compared to 80 marks for examination?   Thus we have misplaced priority.

 

4. Is there a need to match CBSE syllabus?

 

Is there a real need to match CBSE syllabus?  Every state board has a separate syllabus for Maths for every standard. Our old syllabus it self was more or less  was on par with CBSE(http://freeganita.com/en/topics.htm).  We also know that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India among states in India. Has any one really compared their school syllabus with other states? In fact their maths syllabus for high school is not at all heavy and covers basics of mathematics thoroughly.  Same must be true with other subjects to keep syllabus simple and just adequate. Probably this explains the reason for high literacy rate in Kerala. When majority of students studying in Karnataka’s high schools, do not have literacy family background at home, how can we expect them to cope up with CBSE syllabus?  Compared to nearly 8 Lakh students studying in state Board, only around 15,000 students appear for CBSE examinations, mostly from urban areas.

When 80% of the students in High schools are coming from non urban background, should we not focus in teaching them well whatever we do teach, so as to lay a good foundation in Maths?

The text book preparation committee seems to be lay more stress on quantity than quality, so that state can claim that  ours is also CBSE Syllabus!

 

5. Impact of new syllabus:

 

  1. Those students who are already allergic to maths will move away from maths hampering its study even effecting Engineering education where maths is used extensively.
  2. Like the way it is happening at college level, teachers will skip covering few topics in classes and leaving students in the lurch and thereby defeating the very purpose of having CBSE level of maths.
  3. There will be more craze and need for tuition classes further creating divide between haves and ‘have nots’ , ’rural’ and ‘urban’,  ‘lower’ and ‘middle’  classes.

 

Reason for this mess, lies in going overboard on CBSE and also the improper composition of text book committee.

 

6. Skewed composition of text book Committee:

 

The committee consists of 11 eminent members out of  which only 4 are coming from teaching background in High schools and rests are all lecturers/professors at college level, who do not know what the field reality is. There is only one lady in the committee  whose representation is  abnormally low considering their numbers as teachers in high schools . In addition committee is city centric  and has no adequate representation from north Karnataka, where as 80 to 90% of students, teachers, hail from non urban areas and most of the schools are situated in North  Karnataka. The committee need to be broad based consisting mainly of teachers from non urban areas and ladies teaching in High schools and also teachers from North Karnataka.

 

 

6. What is the solution?

Since the load on teachers is very high, text book content should be reduced by removing certain unwanted parts. If ours has to conform to  CBSE, then the lesson ‘Permutation and Combination’ which is not part of CBSE could be removed. It is to be noted ‘Graphs and Polyhedra’ chapter neither uses any of the mathematical concepts learnt till 10th class nor it is used at +12 level and is not part of any board’s syllabus. Hence it could be dropped altogether. In addition certain portions like , for example in quadratic equation chapter, ‘solving by square method’ can be removed. Another area could be removal ‘Synthetic division’ method.  This way load can be reduced without effecting quality.

 

 

About Author:

K V R Somayaji is founder of  www.FREEganita.com  and www.eShale.org and ex- director of Oracle India. Email: freeganita@gmail.com