LUCKNOW: In a major decision aimed at easing the pressure on students, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to scale down the syllabus of all high school and intermediate classes under the UP Board.

The move is seen by academia as an attempt to bring it at par with other distinguished national boards such as the Indian Certificate School Examination (ICSE) and Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE).

For last many years, a section of academia did label UP Board as the most cumbersome and much tougher model than the CBSE and the ICSE.

For this, the UP government has directed the Curriculum Revision Committee (CRC), to "go trough all prescribed text books and prune irrelevant/ impractical subject matter".

Though formal proposals will be implemented by year end only, the exercise, says AK Mishra, principal secretary secondary education, "could bring about some major changes like introducing open book system for limited subjects on an experimental basis".

Speaking on the move, Prabha Tripathi, convener of the CRC, said "it is for the first time since the UP Board was set up that experts are concentrating on how to trim rather than adding on to the existing bulk. Over the intervening period, revisions only ended up adding more chapters or material in the lesson books. No attempt, however, was made, to strike a balance by deleting a few things at the same time".

This trend has resulted in "syllabus flab" which needs to be tackled on an urgent basis, the CRC felt.

"The committee, in collaboration with the SCERT and panel of national experts drafted for the purpose, proposes to submit its report by the year end so that the government could consider implementation by the 2009 academic session," she said.