Textbooks for subjects like Botany and Zoology cut down by TN government now
Posted on: 12/Apr/2019 9:50:13 AM
There were many complaints regarding the new state board textbooks being voluminous is known. The important information is state government has combined multiple volumes of textbooks into one book now. Hence the class 12 students appearing for board examination in the year 2020, which is the first batch under new syllabus, would have just one textbook for subjects like Botany and Zoology. It must be noted that the class 11 would have 2 textbooks on the above mentioned subjects
Important point is other subjects like mathematics, physics and chemistry for class 12 would have 2 volumes. In the past there were some reports from the teachers too regarding the vastness of the textbooks and they found it difficult to complete the lessons on time. The school education minister, Mr. K.A. Sengottaiyan promised to look into this issue is known. It is now brought out by a study that the new textbooks have just 7% actual increase in the contents.
It was pointed out by an official belonging to TNSCERT or Tamil Nadu Council for Technical Education and Research that every chapter in the 2 subjects like Botany and Zoology have been revised 20 times to reduce the pages from 500(in 2 books) to present 360 pages. He spoke about how the portions were not cut down and syllabus not diluted. The important point is the portions have been written in a concise manner. He added that the pages have been reduced by means of better page design and layout.
It must be taken into account that the glossary and the reference section present at the end of every chapter are now present at the end of the textbook. The official of TNSCERT then revealed how for the first time full page info-graphics and summarizing the whole chapter have been introduced. He finally threw light on the model questions present that would help the students prepare for the exams such as NEET etc.
Excluding the worked out examples, value additions like QR codes and ICT corners etc, actual increase in the contents was found to be 5% to 7%. This was as per a study that compared old textbooks as well as the new textbooks. The point is average word count per book increased from the previous 62,000 to 66,000 now and the questions for board examinations would be from 230 to 240 pages as against the earlier 260 in the old books.
