Olympiad: A tool to rediscover the school syllabus
School students and parents alike become nervous when out of syllabus questions pop up in exams. But what if there were no marks attached to these questions? What if it all seemed like a game, and actually had a prize at the end instead of a report card? Olympiads are just that. Take the Hindustan Times Olympiad for example; it is a competition based on the school syllabus, on familiar topics, but with questions that do not look like the typical school exam paper. And yes, HT Olympiad has attractive prizes. For this national level competition, Hindustan Times has partnered with Doubtnut, a popular online learning platform.
Hindustan Olympiad is open to students of class I to class XII. Scheduled to start from the month of March, this Olympiad will allow them to put their skills in all subjects to test. The last date of registration is 7th March. Participating in HT Olympiad can be an effective way for students to rediscover their school syllabus in an interesting way.
A syllabus is a kind of instructive tool or guideline that covers what is expected to happen during the complete course session. It prescribes the topics and concepts that students will learn, and will be tested on. Educators look upon the syllabus as a contract between the students and the teachers, acting as a double mirror to assess the performance of both.
How does an Olympiad redefine the scope of the syllabus?
At school, a syllabus is invariably associated with exams and question papers. As a result, it ends up becoming a performance aid instead of a learning aid. An Olympiad helps students approach the same topics with a fresh mind. They know that grasping concepts are the only way to score. So they learn for the sake of learning, not to top in class. They also realise by themselves that the syllabus can be used to connect them with practical experiments and reference reading. An Olympiad, in short, is like a mental break from the routine of classes and exams to explore a greater area of knowledge-based competition.
What are the benefits of syllabus-bound learning?
A syllabus is not a scary document that threatens your child to perform. It’s meant to be an aid for further learning, and laying importance to overall topics, rather than mere chapters. Here are some benefits of having a syllabus:
- It sets the tone for the course by setting clear expectations around the outcome
- It includes information that will facilitate further learning
- It lets students know about test subjects a whole year in advance, so there’s enough time to prepare
- It contains the basis of continued learning outside the classroom, and the seeds of applied learning