NCF 2005 and its impact on Indian Education System

About NCF 2005

• The increase in the study load and pressure on students led NPE 1986, assigned NCERT with a special role to prepare NCF, and also the promotion of the same.
• Learning had become a source of burden and stress for not just the students, but aldo their parents.
• NCERT started the process of revising the National Curriculum Framework.
• Input was taken from all stakeholders to help draft the NCF.
• NCF was approved by Central Advisory Board on Education in September, 2005.

The principles that acted as a guide were:

• To connect ‘book’ knowledge to the real life situations
• To ensure that rote learning method dependence was reduced
• To enrich the curriculum so that it went beyond Text Book/ Reference Book
• To reduce the scare of Examination by making these more flexible
• To define the aims of education
• To build a commitment to democratic values of equality, justice, secularism and freedom.

The focus was shifted from the Teacher to the child as an active learner:

• Children were made the center of learning and focus shifted from teacher to the child, giving importance to their voice, interest and increased participation.
• An active effort to change perception of the adults of the child as a passive learner
• Recognising that every child comes with a pre- set of knowledge and information and given the opportunity can construct their own knowledge
• A co-relation between the learning and immediate environment was essential
• Learning could not be tied to the gender, class, creed as a constraint for the child
• More challenging activities had to be designed

Curricular areas, School stages and Assessment

• NCF recommended major changes in academic subjects of Maths, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences
• It also recommended reduction of stress, making education more relevant, meaningful for the learner

 1. Languages

• Implementation of  3-language formula
• Emphasised mother tongue as medium of instruction
• Curriculum should contain multi-lingual proficiency only if mother tongue is considered as second language
• Focus on all skills; Speaking, Reading, Writing, Listening

2. Mathematics

• Teaching of Mathematics would focus on child’s resources to think and reason, to visualize abstractions and to solve problems, and to apply to real life scenarios.

3. Science

• Teaching of Science would focus on methods and processes so as to nurture thinking process, curiosity and creativity.

4. Social Science

Social Science to be taught with

• Integrated approach for significant themes

• Enable pedagogic practices to promote thinking process, decision making and critical reflection.

5. Draw attention to other areas of learning

a. Art Education: covers music, dance, visual arts and theater which uses interactive approaches and not instruction to create aesthetic awareness and enable children to express themselves in different forms

b. Health and Physical Education: Health depends upon nutrition and planned physical activities.

c. Education for Peace: As a precondition to eradicate growing violence and intolerance

f. Work and Education: To help prepare a social temper and respect towards work ethics

School and Classroom environment

• Critical pre-requisites for improved performance – minimum infrastructure and material facilities and support for planning a flexible daily schedule
• Focus on nurturing an enabling environment
• Revisits tradition notions of discipline
• Discuss needs for providing space to parents and community
• Discuss other learning sites and resources like Texts and Books, Libraries and laboratories and media and ICT
• Addresses the need for plurality of material and Teacher autonomy/professional independence to use such material.

 Systemic Reforms

• Covers needs for academic planning for monitoring quality
• Teacher education should focus on developing professional identity of the Teacher
• Examination reforms to reduce psychological stress particularly on children in class X and XII

Examination reforms highlight:

• Shift from content based testing to problem solving and competency based assessment
• Examinations of shorter duration
• Flexible time limit
• Change in typology of questions
• No public examination till class VIII
• Class X board exam to be made optional (in long term)

Teacher Education Reforms emphasize on preparation of teacher to

1. View learning as a search for meaning out of personal experience, and knowledge generation at a continuously evolving process of reflective learning.
2. View knowledge not as an external reality embedded in textbooks, but as constructed in the shared context of teaching-learning and personal experience.

Guidelines for Syllabus Development

1. Development of syllabi and textbooks based on following considerations

• Appropriateness of topics and themes for relevant stages of children’s development
• Continuity from one level to the next
• Pervasive resonance of all the values enshrined in the constitution of India the organization of knowledge in all subjects
• Inter-disciplinary and thematic linkages between topics listed for different school subjects, which falls under different discrete disciplinary areas.
• Linkage between school knowledge and concern in all subjects and at all levels
• Sensitivity to gender, caste, class, peace, health and need of children with disability
• Integration of work related attitudes and values in every subject and all levels
• Need to nurture aesthetic sensibility and values

2. Linkage between school and college syllabi, avoid overlapping
3. Using potential of media and new information technology in all subjects
4. Encouraging flexibility and creativity in all areas of knowledge and its construction by children.

Development of Support Material

• Audio/video programmes on NCF-2005 and textbooks
• Source-book on learning assessment
• Exemplar problems in Science and Mathematics
• Science and Mathematics kits
• Teachers’ handbooks and manuals.
• Teacher Training Packages.
• Developed syllabi and textbooks in new areas such as Heritage Craft, Media Studies, Art Education, Health and Physical Education, etc.
• Taken various initiatives in the area of ECCE (Early Childhood Care Education), Gender, Inclusive Education, Peace, Vocational Education, Guidance and Counseling, ICT, etc.

 

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