Leave alone government schools, teachers of many private schools under both the State and CBSE Boards are not certain about covering even the trimmed-down portions, reduced in view of COVID- 19 lockdown, ahead of the Plus Two public exam to take place during May-June.
The CBSE has reduced 30 % of portions while under the State Board, one third of the portions have been made optional, implying that the teachers will need to cover them in any case to prepare the students for NEET, JEE and other exams for entry into professional courses.
Though in-person classes are being conducted for Tenth and Plus Two students over the last two months, there is a lot more to be covered, the teachers say.
Not much content could be covered through online classes, a senior teacher said, admitting that the classes were not effective enough in the first place.
Postponement of the public exam by two months this year has indeed provided some breathing space for teachers to rush through the portions. But then, there is no certainty that NEET and JEE will also be postponed in a similar way.
“There should be at least two months gap between the public exam and NEET / JEE. Otherwise, the prospects of regular students to get through the exam will be bleak,” a correspondent of a private school said.
The Ministry of Education at the Centre is understood to have taken a stand that NEET syllabus for 2021 will be confined to the 70 % content of CBSE syllabus.
The worry of teachers and students of State Board is that the absence of complete uniformity in the reduced portions vis-a-vis the CBSE syllabus, would put them at a serious disadvantage.
“The timing or syllabus of NEET / JEE will not be a problem for repeaters. As things stand, there will be no level playing field for regular students,” a principal of a CBSE school pointed out.
