The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has planned to introduce a bunch of English novels as part of its syllabi for classes IX to XII from the 2012-13 academic session to inculcate good reading habits in students.

CBSE, through a circular to all affiliated schools, has instructed them to introduce novels in the four classes. Sources said students would need to answer a 10-mark question based on the novel in their English examination.

Several city schools, including Ishan International and DAV BSEB, have decided on which novels to introduce in the four classes.

Sources added that every school has to choose a novel out of two prescribed titles for each class. According to CBSE guidelines, Class IX students would get a chance to read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels or Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat.

Class X students would read Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl or Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life.

Class XI students can delve into either Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost or Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, while Class XII students would have to choose between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

While most of the students are upbeat about the board’s decision, believing that reading novels would help them acquire proficiency in literature, there are some who feel novels would only add to their already vast syllabus.

Anandita Rani, a Class IX student of St Dominic Savio’s High School, not happy with the introduction of novels, said: “Novels are really tough to understand. Obviously, students would have to give more time to understand the novels properly. We already have a vast syllabus to complete. Now, the syllabus would become tougher.”

Divya Jha, Anandita’s classmate, had a different take on this. She said introduction of novels would help hone her “literary skills”. “It would help me to increase my vocabulary which is a very important part of communication,” said Divya.

Nivedita Singh, an English teacher at DAV BSEB, said: “Textbooks don’t teach students about life and its complexities. But novel reading can help make kids mature. It’s a great move taken by CBSE.”