In normal times classes for grade 11 begin in July. But this year, given the pandemic they began only in September.

As if that was not an issue enough, the Curriculum Development Centre had prepared a new curriculum for grades 11 and 12 from this academic year switching to a single-track curriculum from the earlier system of having different streams for Science, Management, Humanities and Education.

The rationale behind the new curriculum was that the eighth amendment to the Education Act in 2016 integrated grades 11 and 12 into the high school system from the earlier higher secondary system. The government in January last year decided to adopt the new curriculum.

According to the new curriculum, students in grades 11 and 12 would study three compulsory subjects—English, Nepali, and Social Studies and Life Skills—and choose three more from among 80 electives, taking the number of subjects to six from five earlier.

Social Studies and Life Skills was a new addition.

According to officials at the Curriculum Development Centre, the subject was introduced to provide students with communication, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision making skills along with teaching them the social aspects of Nepali society.

“It also provides thinking, social and emotional skills,” Ganesh Bhattarai, director at the Curriculum Development Centre, told the Post.

According to Bhattarai, thinking skills enhance logical faculty of the students while interpersonal relationship, cooperation, leadership and team building skills are imparted to the students under social skills. The course is designed to provide self-management and dealing with different situations under emotional skills.

But not everyone was happy with the decision, especially one to exclude Mathematics as a compulsory subject.

A newly formed Mathematics Concern Group even knocked on the door of the Supreme Court demanding a halt to the adoption of the new curriculum without Mathematics.

With the country going into a lockdown in March, that was extended for four months, the cancellation of the grade 10 School Education Examination and the decision that its results would be based on internal evaluation of the individual schools, the confusion in the education sector was unprecedented.

School operators, especially those of private ones, asked the government to introduce the new curriculum in the next academic year rather than during the time of Covid-19 pandemic while the Supreme Court was looking into the petition demanding that the new curriculum be not adopted.

Hoping that the court would halt the introduction of the new curriculum, private school operators, when classes began in September, continued teaching the old curriculum.

However, the Supreme Court, four months after the petition was filed, gave the go ahead to the new curriculum on January 12.

On the issue of making Mathematics a compulsory subject, the court asked the Ministry of Education to revisit its decision to exclude Mathematics as a compulsory subject and thus leaving the decision up to the ministry whether or not to incorporate the subject in the curriculum. It asked the ministry to consult with experts and the concerned stakeholders before taking any decision regarding the subject.

On Thursday, backtracking on its decision from last year, the Ministry of Education announced that Mathematics would be included as a compulsory subject.

However, students who don’t want to study Mathematics can take Social Studies and Life Skills Education, the National Curriculum Development and Evaluation Council led by Minister for Education Krishna Gopal Shrestha decided.

“Though the Supreme Court had given a go ahead without incorporating Mathematics, the council made the decision to this effect to end the dispute over the curriculum,” Bhattarai told the Post. “This, however, doesn’t mean our earlier decision [to have Mathematics only as an elective subject] was wrong.”

Thursday’s decision has, understandably, come under fire.

Education experts say the government shouldn’t be taking ad hoc decisions on serious issues like the curriculum.

“The council should have a proper answer to what led it to exclude Mathematics from the curriculum earlier and why is it incorporating now,” said Tanka Nath Sharma, former dean at Kathmandu University School of Education.

Sushan Acharya, a professor at Tribhuvan University, said a lot of work goes into designing a curriculum with its long term effect on students’ learning taken into consideration.

“The government cannot make such knee-jerk reactions,” she told the Post. “I disagree with the very decision to make Mathematics as an alternative to Life Skills Education. While students should be learning Mathematics, life skill education should also be a part of the education system.”

School principals too have come down on Thursday’s decision.

“The new decision is against the very motive of introducing Social Studies and Life Skills,” Narayan Gautam, acting principal at Padmodaya High School, Kathmandu, told the Post.

Most schools had already been teaching Life Skills and Social Studies for grade 11.

“But now students who want to pursue Science at the university level have already started asking for the introduction of Mathematics,” Gautam said. “I think an overwhelming number of students will now shift to Mathematics.”

For Sharma, the former dean, the problem lies with the very composition of the council that made the decision.

“What good can we expect from the council that doesn’t have the participation of experts,” he told the Post. “The education minister leads it and bureaucrats are its members.”

The council led by the education minister has the education secretary and director generals at Centre for Education and Human Resource Development and Curriculum Development Centre as its members.

Education experts also say that rather than forcing students to study particular subjects, they should be given the option of studying the subjects of their choice.

“I believe there should be no limitation for students to study the subjects of their choice,” Binay Kusiyait, a professor at Tribhuvan University, told the Post. “Let the students make the choice based on their career goals.”

Bhattarai, however, doesn’t buy Kusiyait’s suggestion. He said Nepal has its own standards and principles for education which need to be reflected in the curriculum.

“Our grade 11 and 12 is not like A Levels,” he said. “We need to have some compulsory subjects to ensure the school level students have some knowledge of literacy, numeracy and social science.”

A Level is a British curriculum some private schools in Nepal offer in place of grades 11 and 12.

Education experts say the only way to ensure that such problems do not arise again is to have experts of school curriculum in the council instead of ministers and bureaucrats.

“Allow the experts from the respective fields to take the decision, not the politicians and bureaucrats,” said Sharma.

Meanwhile, with the decision on Mathematics and the confusion over the new curriculum, school operators have demanded the postponement of the academic session by a couple of months.

“We have proposed to the Cabinet accordingly,” Deepak Sharma, spokesperson for the Education Ministry, told the Post. “We are waiting for the Cabinet to take the necessary decision.”

But as far as the teaching learning process in classrooms goes, schools say the decision to include Mathematics in the middle of the academic session has created further confusion.

“The indecision of the Supreme Court created a dilemma for months,” said Gautam, the acting principal. “Now the government’s decision to include Mathematics has messed up everything.”