New Delhi: Clarifying the changes in the draft Class 9 mathematics syllabus, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Friday said no topics were removed overall.
The council said some concepts that appeared to be missing were instead integrated into other chapters to help students understand their application across multiple concepts.
NCERT said the syllabus currently in circulation is only a draft released to seek feedback from teachers, students and other stakeholders. The feedback will be considered before the syllabus is finalised. The final Class 9 mathematics syllabus is expected to be released in October by NCERT and CBSE.
Addressing concerns over specific topics, NCERT said key ideas and applications related to Lines and Angles are already introduced in the Class 6 Ganita Prakash textbook and continue in Class 9 through chapters on Proportionality and Theorems.
Similarly, Quadrilaterals are covered in Chapter 12 of the Class 9 mathematics textbook.
Following consultations with teachers and educators, NCERT said it had decided not to retain a separate abstract chapter focused on axioms, theorems and proofs. Instead, these concepts would be introduced across different chapters, allowing students to understand their application.
The draft syllabus also includes a chapter on algorithms. The council said the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes it important for students to understand mathematical concepts related to algorithms, data structures and running-time efficiency.
The council linked the move to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020’s emphasis on computational thinking. It said understanding the mathematical foundations that support AI would become increasingly important.
NCERT also said a standalone AI module is being developed, while mathematical concepts supporting AI will be introduced through Mathematics.
It said the curriculum under NEP 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023 is not designed simply as a list of textbook chapters.
Instead, it is structured around curricular goals, competencies and learning outcomes. Curricular goals outline broad learning objectives, while competencies define what students should be able to achieve, and learning outcomes provide observable milestones for teaching, learning and assessment.
The council said textbooks are among the resources used to achieve these objectives. Therefore, assessing curriculum coverage simply by counting textbook chapters or headings does not reflect the approach of competency-based education.