LU Teachers' Body Against Common Minimum Syllabus

The higher education department had drafted the CMS for state universities last year after the central government issued NEP, and uploaded it on its website.

Lucknow University (Image Source: lkouniv.ac.in)

Lucknow: The Lucknow University Teachers' Association (LUTA) has strongly opposed the adoption of the common minimum syllabus (CMS) in universities.

LUTA has written to Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Higher Education, Dinesh Sharma , urging him not to implement the CMS as it is not at par with the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

The higher education department had drafted the CMS for state universities last year after the central government issued NEP, and uploaded it on its website.

On April 20 this year, it directed state universities to include 70 per cent of the content prescribed in the CMS in their syllabus and allowing them to have their own 30 per cent content.

LUTA opposed the direction and said, "The syllabus of a university and its affiliated colleges is drafted and approved by teachers in its board of studies (BOS) keeping in mind the availability of resources, present academic need and expertise of its teachers.

Also, this syllabus is revised from time to time as per the need and demands of the job market.

"In NEP it has been clearly mentioned that the department and institutional autonomy should be promoted. It also emphasizes on complete freedom to be given to an institution to decide its syllabus, books and assignments, hence, CMS is not at par with NEP."

LUTA President, Prof Vineet Verma, said, "NEP asks to provide a variety of syllabi to students but CMS is against it as it limits universities to the common syllabus which is not in students' interest.

"During the 100-year celebration of Lucknow University, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address, had appealed to all universities to prepare syllabus in accordance with their local and regional requirements so that the region can benefit with the education imparted."

He further stated that since Uttar Pradesh is a big state where requirements vary from one region to other, imposing CMS will be completely against NEP.

LUTA also said that if the same syllabus is taught in all universities and colleges, it will kill creative thinking, innovation and ideation and the state will fall behind other states academically.

LUTA added that universities and colleges still do not have the required infrastructure for the adoption of NEP or to provide industrial training to run skill development courses.