Nagpur: In a bid to improve the overall results, the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Pune has started revamping its syllabus and bringing it at par with the CBSE/ ICSE boards.

Under the development, the board has agreed to remove subjects, generally considered to be 'tough' by students. These subjects include English and mathematics which generally witness a large number of students failing to secure good marks. The board has now decided to replace them with their 'much-easier' versions.

The move is also seen as an attempt to minimize parent's obsession towards CBSE -affiliated schools in the city.

"We've been making changes in our syllabus as per the CBSE pattern. Our focus is also on improving our results. There will be lot of local content in our syllabus as category of students appearing in our examinations differ from those of CBSE," told, state education minister Vasant Purke.

Further, from next academic session (2008-09), Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education would soon introduce an easier version of mathematics - 'Functional mathematics' in the ninth standard. However, the difficult version would now be known as 'Applied mathematics' and would be optional for medical and engineering students. It is further planned that such a syllabus would be introduced in standard 10 from 2010.

In a related development, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had asked all state boards to revamp their existing syllabus as per international standards and give due importance to research inputs and practicals.