Kolkata, Aug. 4 -- The state government on Tuesday announced that the school syllabus for the 2027 academic session would undergo only a limited review, with a comprehensive overhaul aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to be introduced from 2028 after wider public consultation.
The announcement came after the first meeting of the newly constituted Syllabus-cum-Curriculum Committee, headed by Kalyani University chemistry professor Debashis Chatterjee.
School Education Minister Dipak Barman said there was insufficient time to undertake a complete restructuring before the next academic session.
"The existing syllabus will only undergo a review for 2027. The entire curriculum will be comprehensively revised for 2028," he said.
Barman said the draft curriculum for 2028 would be placed in the public domain and suggestions invited from educationists, teachers' organisations, student organisations, political parties and the public before it was finalised.
He said all existing academic and examination arrangements, including the no-detention policy up to Class VIII, would continue in 2027, and any changes to the syllabus, assessment or examination system would be considered only while framing the 2028 curriculum. He added that the committee had complete freedom to make its recommendations and would function without political or ministerial pressure. The government, he said, would not reject any policy merely because it had been introduced by the previous administration.
The meeting was attended by Higher Education Minister Jagannath Chattopadhyay, Minister of State for School Education Kaushik Chowdhury, Information Technology Minister Kalyan Chakraborty, former West Bengal Governor Tathagata Roy, educationists, committee members and senior officials.
Addressing the meeting, Chattopadhyay said a "politics-free" and "appeasement-free" curriculum was essential to create a "violence-free" and "fear-free" environment in the state.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.