CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday has reversed the decision to allow Class 11 students to opt to study either three core subjects or four core subjects along with language papers for their State board exams. In the academic year 2020-21, students will continue picking four core subjects and write their public exams for 600 marks.
The decision is a reversal of an order issued last September giving students the option of writing the public exams for 500 marks only. While the reduction was made to reduce the burden of syllabus on students, a senior official from the school education department told Express that the decision was received bitterly by the public. “It was introduced so that students can only choose what they needed to apply for higher education and competitive exams.”
While the government thought that the public would be pleased with the change, people did not respond too well. “Parents have told us that having only three subjects will limit the scope of programmes students can apply for higher studies,” the official said.
“When the government said that it was working to reduce the syllabus burden, we were under the impression that they would merge the language papers alone. While giving the option of leaving out a subject will make things easy for students, they often do not have a choice in it,” said the principal of a government-aided school. He said that it is often schools that call the shots on which group a student picks. “If a student studies really well, we ask the student to decide. For all other students we guide their options,” she said.
The headmaster of a matriculation school in the city said that students will always opt for lesser syllabus. “Most students do not want to study more. Dropping a core subject was bad because students may regret their choice later. In most cases students will want to drop maths,” he said.
Opposition leader MK Stalin welcomed the decision.