Shweta Sharan A few weeks ago, a friend who works as an independent career counsellor in a school in Bangalore had an alarming story to share. She was counselling a 10th grader in a school that has dual syllabi and the student in question told her that she could not take the IGCSE exam in a specific year because her school had forgotten to register her name for the exam. She was missing an entire year due to this confusion. In a country that has three national syllabi and two international curricula, there is bound to be confusion in the way the academic calendar is drawn up, especially when it comes to giving enough time to apply for college exams. How do schools work around this and how much flexibility do they have in terms of organizing the calendar? According to Ms. Priya Ramakrishnan, who teaches biology and chemistry at National Public School, Bangalore, all CBSE schools are provided with mandatory programs to be followed in school, like the Adolescent Education program for example, and it is up to an individual school to balance the compulsories with the extra-curricular activities. “At NPS, we have two calendars – the Program of Work and a regular school calendar. The Program of Work is an academic calendar and outlines how topics and lessons have to be spread across a year. This varies according to the school. The school calendar has all the activities planned for the year, including test dates and events like children’s day and the annual day. It is up to the school to balance this and to work around the CBSE guidelines.” Ms Ramakrishnan says that the 8th, 9th and 10th graders find themselves to be the busiest people in the entire school, due to many activities and academic goals that they try to achieve in the year. “A school can be smart about the calendar and balance things out. We had a student who had to travel due to a football tournament held outside Bangalore and couldn’t attend school for 25 days. All of us gave him remedial classes as soon as he came back. We also have so many Olympiads to juggle throughout the year, apart from competitive exams like the IAIS, PSAT and IGKO. In the end, this constant see-sawing teaches children how to manage time, organize themselves and other important life skills.” Common curriculum, splintered timelines While the CBSE and ICSE offer uniform curricula and timelines for schools that are affiliated