No interest from students, CBSE scraps 41 subjects

THE CENTRAL Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to stop offering subjects such as Philosophy, Human Rights and Gender Studies, Theatre Studies, Creative Writing and Translation Studies in the next academic session as the enrolment in these subjects was very low.

A total of 41 subjects — seven academic elective and 34 vocational — have been discontinued by the board.

In a circular issued to schools affiliated to it, the board said, “Considering very low enrolment, the subjects are withdrawn from the 2017-18 session.”

Students who opted for these subjects in Class XI will continue to study them but will be the last batch, as of now, to pursue them.

The 34 vocational subjects, which have been dropped from the list available to Class XII students, include poultry nutrition and physiology, management of dairy animals, health education, communication, confectionery, music aesthetics, office communication, first aid and emergency medical care, and integrated transport operations.

According to heads of schools, only a handful of students would pick the subjects, making it tough for them to hire teachers on a permanent basis. Teaching a subject to a class of as low as two or three students would become a problem, a principal said.

“Starting these subjects was a good idea but they failed to take off. Students and parents usually like to stick to the conventional subjects, so that college admissions are not impacted. As for vocational courses, many of these, such as midwifery, were outdated. Also, colleges in Delhi University don’t give as much weightage to vocational subjects as they do to academic ones,” said a principal of a Delhi school, who did not wish to be named.