Education Department issues notice to schools for neglecting syllabi

[sajiv]

Education Department issues notice to schools for neglecting syllabi

ERODE: Schools neglecting Class Nine and Plus One syllabi has once again come to the fore, thanks to the notices the Education Department has issued.

The office of the Chief Education Officer in Erode has issued a notice dated August 20 to two schools, both private, seeking an explanation for neglecting Class Nine syllabus and teaching Class Ten syllabus to ninth grade students and similarly ignoring Plus One syllabus to teach Plus Two syllabus to Plus One students. This neglect of syllabi has caused consternation among engineering college faculty, who say students joining engineering programmes have poor understanding of basics.

"Without understanding concepts at preparatory stage, students who learn by rote land in engineering colleges facing serious challenges in not only understanding basic engineering but also solving problems," says S. Kuppuswami, principal, Kongu Engineering College.

Engineering College faculty also wonder how is that the schools neglect science and maths, which has continuity.

"Plus One Maths chapters like matrices, vector, algebra and differential and integral calculus form the foundation of Plus Two maths and science and also engineering subjects, which, if the schools neglect, then students landing up at engineering colleges face tremendous difficulty," says A.M. Natarajan, chief executive, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology.

He says the lack of confidence in students in taking up maths-based subjects and questions in tests impacts their career, as they are unable to solve real-time problems.

In defence, school managements say they are forced to teach Class Nine and Plus One students in the previous academic year because of competition.

A headmistress of an Erode-based school says when marks alone matter, schools are forced to force students score high marks, for which they conduct tests.

The students need to be thorough more with question papers than subjects to score high marks, she says. Education Department sources, however, disagree.

The sources further say that one reason why government schools are not able to put up an impressive performance is because they teach as per rules.