CBSE reduces syllabus by 30% due to Covid. Actually, they could reduce it by any amount, even 90%, and in two important ways, it won't matter at all. The first has to do with learning, the second has to do with children's progress. Schools and boards are only incidental to these.

'Reducing the syllabus' clearly means learning less. If the Board thinks that's not going to make a material difference, that itself tells us how useful the syllabus is/was. After all, they could easily have lengthened the school year, saying 'actual learning is the goal'.

The second lever is exams. If the government wants to, it can decide that even 11th standard students can take college entrance exams, or it can eliminate exams altogether and choose some other path, maybe a lottery. Boards have value only because of the tight link to the exams.

For the next few years, hiring could become delinked from college in a number of subjects. That may still not be enough to nudge fossil institutions, but it will begin to set up alternatives. Anyone who remembers the origins of NIIT knows that story well.

We have a ludicrous situation - an all-round consensus that students should not lose a year, even if it means that they progress without learning. There's a pandemic of certification going around, along with coronavirus. And a strong desire not to look for a vaccine !!