Lucknow University arts faculty also rejects common minimum syllabus

LUCKNOW: After facing rejection from the science faculty board of Lucknow University, the state government’s common minimum syllabus (CMS) claimed to be on a par with the New Education Policy (NEP 2020) faced stiff opposition and rejection from the university’s arts faculty during the faculty board meeting on Friday.
All 26 departments of the arts faculty rejected CMS saying that the standard of the syllabus is much lower than what is being taught by the university at present.Senior teachers of the arts faculty said that course content that promises greater employability to students is missing from the syllabus, which is against NEP.
The higher education department had drafted CMS for state universities last year after the central government issued NEP and uploaded it on its website. On April 20, it directed state universities to include 70% of the content prescribed in CMS in their syllabi and have 30% content of their own.
“There is no consistency in the syllabus and it’s a very imbalanced one. For example, the syllabus is overburdening students with six papers in a semester while in others there are only three or two papers,” said head of the economics department Prof MK Agarwal.
He also said that topics of specialization meant for PG level had been introduced at UG level.
He further added that there was great monotony in the syllabus as CMS continues to teach Indian economy to students for many semesters whereas at present they are taught economic theories for 360-degree knowledge.
Head of the sociology department Prof DR Sahu said important topics have been removed in CMS.
“A very important portion of rural sociology about aspects of rural life, its problems, culture, religion, economic and political life has been removed,” said Prof Sahu.