In July, a few months after the new academic year began, the Central Board of Secondary Education decided to reduce its syllabus by 30 per cent for students of classes IX to XII. The decision was taken owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, which made the students miss a lot of their classes. According to Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry officials, the syllabus has been rationalised to reduce the burden on students but the core concepts have been retained. A few state boards too followed suit, right after the CBSE's decision.
However, it looks like the students who are preparing for competitive examinations like JEE and NEET cannot afford to skip these topics. Speaking with EdexLive, Anurag Tiwari, National Academic Director (Medical), Aakash Institute said that the NTA did not give any instruction regarding this to the coaching institutes and that their students are taught these excluded portions too. "JEE and NEET are always based on the NCERT syllabus. Now it will be almost impossible to set competitive examination question papers, excluding these topics," he says.
At the same time, an RTI filed with the National Testing Agency, that sought the syllabus for JEE and NEET 2021 was disposed off. The RTI was filed by Vivek Pandey, a medical student from Madhya Pradesh. "The Question Papers for NEET (UG) is based on a Common Syllabus notified by the Medical Council of India (MCI). NTA has no role in framing the syllabus for NEET," read its remark. However, Vivek points out that the MCI is a defunct body, which was replaced by the National Medical Commission, on September 25, 2020. He also noted that the NMC is not in the ambit of the RTI.
At the same time, the CBSE has now released its 2021 board examination sample papers. These papers are set, keeping the reduction of 30 per cent of the syllabus in mind.
