The National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF- SE) was released by education minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently. The document is the first ever integrated Curriculum Framework for children between ages 3-18 in India. National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) for ages 3-8, which was released on 20 October 2022, has been integrated within the NCF-SE. A 12- member steering committee headed by Dr. K. Kasturirangan former chairman, ISRO, was working on the NCF for school education, as recommended by National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020. The NCF- SE pre- draft was released by ministry of education in April 2023 and kept for public comments. According to the NCF – SE, the National Curriculum Frameworks for Teacher Education, and for Adult Education, will follow shortly.
One of the key proposals of the National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020 was development of a new National Curriculum Framework (NCF) and new State Curriculum Frameworks (SCFs) for transforming school education in the country. One of the major objectives of NCF-SE is to ‘bring consonance and harmony across the curricula in the country’. The curricular and pedagogical structure that has come out with for school education through NCF – SE resonates with the four stages of schooling (5+3+3+4 ‘curricular and pedagogical’ structure) as recommended by NEP 2020. NCF -SE is meant to be the guiding light to practitioners of education, whether they are syllabus or content developers or school Teachers.
NCF- SE document is organised into five parts, which focuses on following aspects of school education:
The first part defines and emphasis on the broader Aims of School Education (AoSE), inspired from the constitutional values, along with certain principles, values, skills, knowledge and capacities that caters to achieving the AoSE.
The second part discusses on some of the important cross-cutting themes of NCF-SE.
The third part is particularly important for teachers, as it comprises of separate sections for each school subjects along with learning standards defined for all stages. The principles for content selection, pedagogy and assessments are also detailed out in this section.
The significance of school culture and positive learning environment is discussed in part 4.
Teacher capacities and service conditions, physical infrastructure requirements, and the role of the community and family along with requirements of overall ecosystem of schooling that contributes towards the broader AoSE is included in the last part.
The first part (Part A) is a must read section for all the stake holders. For selective readers the section ‘How to Read the National Curriculum Framework for School Education’ give clear guidance on how to approach various sections of the document.
Grades 11 and 12 is considered as phase 2 of Secondary stage, in which NCF – SE puts forward choice – based courses with an aim to blur the rigid boundaries that separates disciplinary and academic areas. According to NCE – SE 2023, Students need to choose four subjects (with an optional fifth subject) from at least two of the following three groups:
1) Group 2: Art Education, Physical Education, Vocational Education
2) Group 3: Social Science and Humanities, Interdisciplinary Areas
3) Group 4: Science, Mathematics and Computational Thinking.
To get a Grade 12 certificate, the students should pass the following Board examinations:
1) 2 examinations in Languages
2) 4 examinations from at least 2 Groups (with one additional optional exam)
3) Subjects in Group 2 (Art Education, Physical Education, and Vocational Education) would have local assessments with Board certification.
It is intended to improve the width and depth of study of disciplines and permit the students to choose interesting combinations of subject areas, as per NCF- SE 2023. Art Education, Physical Education Environmental education and Vocational education listed as few thrust areas in the document, along with an immense emphasis on need to set the context for curriculum of all disciplines deep rooted in India.
The language curriculum aims at developing ‘linguistic proficiency for academic use in three languages by age 15 (Grade 10). At least two out of these three languages should be languages native to India. At least one language native to India will be studied at the ‘literature level’, according to NCF – SE 2023. The NCF – SE 2023 suggests that the medium of instruction for the subjects should be the language in which literacy is first attained in school, until literacy in another language is attained. It is referred to as R1, which is usually the mother tongue of the student or the language prevalently used in the neighbourhood as recommended by the document. Such key recommendations are also made for Mathematics, Science and social science education in the document.
The NCF – SE 2023 is the framework published after 17 years, since the previous NCF 2005 was released. To quote from NCF-SE 2023, ‘This NCF has set clear and specific Learning Standards in order to bring clarity to all stakeholders — policymakers, educational administrators and functionaries, syllabus and content developers, parents, Teachers, and students — on the intended educational outcomes of the curriculum. Since school education is a public good, it is hoped that such clarity among all stakeholders will bring more accountability and effectiveness to the education system as a whole’.
(Rekha Chandroth is an educational trainer who engages with schools and education departments in India.)