k desiraju

7/27/2019 k Desiraju

1/34

IndiaNational Curriculum Framework2005


2/34

The Mandate

Charter of NCERT envisages a special place fordesigning curriculum.

NCERT expected to review school curriculum as

a regular activity ensuring the higheststandards of rigour

National Policy on Education, 1986 assigns aspecial role to NCERT in preparing andpromoting a National Curriculum Framework.


3/34

NCF structures

National Steering Committee set up

NSC comprised 35 members including scholars,principals and teachers, NGO representatives andNCERT faculty

NSC supported by 21 National Focus Groupsto prepare well researched Position Papers

NFGs chaired by renowned scholars andpractitioners


4/34

National Focus Groups

Curricular Areas:

Science, Mathematics, Indian Languages, English, SocialSciences, Art, Dance, Theatre and Music, PhysicalEducation & Health

Systemic Reform:

Aims of Education, Systemic Reform for CurricularChange, Curriculum, syllabus and textbooks, TeacherEducation for curriculum renewal, Examination reforms,Work & Education, Educational Technology, HeritageCrafts

National Concerns

Problems of SC/ST children, Gender, Problems of childrenwith special needs, Peace Education


5/34

Wide ranging deliberations

Country wide consultations/ interactions with classroompractitioners, scholars of the country

Rural teachers

State Governments/ Local Self Governments

Voluntary Agencies

Principals of private schools

Unprecedented media debates

Advertisements inviting suggestions placed in 28national and regional dailies

Over 2000 responses received


6/34

A mothers response

Our syllabus gets more massive and moves beyond the

teaching capacity of the teachers so they rush through thecontents with tedious methodology. Students cannot meet theattention span requirement in the classrooms and either fail atcomprehension or blank out into daydreaming. Newer topics ofmany different subjects are covered even before the previousones have been chewed over. The burden of the syllabus is thenpassed on to the parents or tuition classes. Little childrenburdened with loads of education on their shoulders trip fromschool to tuition classes, bypassing childhood. A section of

students study harder and harder to beat each other to the topslot. Majority of the students are hounded by parents andteachers to study harder and become stressed, some requiringeven clinical treatment.


7/34

Perspectives

Learning andknowledge

Curricular areas,school stages andassessment

School and

classroomenvironment

Systemic reform


8/34

Perspectives

Provides the historical backdrop; recalls NPE

statement on curricular framework NPE

Revolves around the question of curriculum loadon children

Information often confused for knowledge.

Tendency to teach everything arises from our lack offaith in childrens creative instincts.

Demand for inclusion of new topics/subjects results indisjointed syllabi; encyclopaedic textbooks, andtraumatic exams.


9/34

Perspectives

Proposes guiding principles for curriculumdevelopment

Connecting knowledge to life outside the school

Ensuring that learning shifts away from rotemethods

Enriching curriculum so that it goes beyondtextbooks

Making examinations flexible


10/34

Perspectives

Describes the social context of education - hierarchies of

caste, economic status, gender relations that influenceaccess and participation.

Cautions against pressures to commodify schools and

application of market related concepts to schools andschool quality

Discusses the aims of education

Building commitment to democratic values of equality,justice, freedom, concern for others well being,secularism and respect for human dignity and rights.


11/34

Learning

and

Knowledge


12/34

Learning and Knowledge

Focuses on the childas an active learner

Primacy to childrens experiences, their voices andtheir participation

Need for adults to change their perception of childrenas passive receivers of knowledge

Children can be active participants in the constructionof knowledge

The school should recognize the innate ability of eachchild to construct his/her own knowledge, and the factthat every child comes to school with a fund of pre-knowledge.


13/34


Therefore children must be encouraged to ask

questions, relate what they are learning in schools tothings happening outside and answer in their ownwords rather than by memorizing.

Recognizes the need for developing an enabling andnon-threatening environment

Emphasizes that gender, caste, class, religion and

minority status should not constrain participation inexperiences provided in school


14/34


Highlights the value of interaction with:

environment,

peers,

older people to enhance learning;

Learning tasks must be designed to enable children toseek out knowledge from sites other than textbooks.

Need therefore to move away from rigid lesson planning

to planning and designing activities that challengechildren to think and try out what they are learning.


15/34

Curricularareas,

schoolstages andassessment


16/34

Curricular Areas, School Stages andAssessment

Recommends significant changes in Language,

Maths, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences

Overall view to reduce stress, make education

more relevant, meaningful.


17/34


Language:

Makes renewed attempt to implement 3-languageformula

Emphasis on home language as medium of instruction

Curriculum should promote multi-lingual proficiency;can happen only if learning builds a sound languagepedagogy of the mother tongue.

Focus on language as an integral part of every subject:reading, writing, listening and speaking contribute tochilds progress in all curricular areas and must be thebasis for curriculum planning.


18/34


Mathematics

Succeeding in Maths should be seen as the right of every child

A majority of children have a sense of fear and failure ofMaths: they give up early.

Curriculum is disappointing to this non-participating majority,but also to talented minority it offers them no challenges.

Textbooks are replete with problems, exercises and methodsof evaluation which are repetitive and mechanical

Focus on childs ability to think and reason

Visualize and handle abstractions

Formulate and solve problems


19/34

Science

Should be recast to enable children to examine andanalyze everyday experiences

Environment Education should become part of every

subject thru wide range of activities involvingoutdoor project work


20/34


Social Sciences

Recognizes disciplinary markers so that content is noteroded, but also emphasizes integration of themes,such as water water

Recommends paradigm shift to study social sciencesfrom the perspective of marginalized groups

Gender justice and sensitivity to issues of tribal andsocially deprived groups, and minority sensibilitiesmust inform all sectors of social sciences.


21/34


Draws attention to four other areas:

Art Education

Covers four major spheres of music, dance, visualarts and theatre.

Focus on interactive approaches, not instruction because goal is to promote aesthetic awarenessand enable children to express themselves indifferent forms

Health and Physical Education

Success in school depends on nutrition and wellplanned physical activities.


22/34


Education for Peace

As a precondition for national development in viewof growing tendency towards intolerance andviolence.

Work and Education

Workalone can create a social temper.

Workshould be infused in all subjects fromprimary stage upwards

Agencies offering workopportunities outside theschool should be formally recognised.


23/34

School and classroom environment


24/34


Critical pre-requisites for improved performance

Availability of minimum infrastructure and materialfacilities

Support for planning a flexible daily schedule.

Focus on nurturing an enabling environment

Revisits traditional notions of discipline

Discusses need for providing space to parents andcommunity


25/34


Discusses other learning sites and resources

Texts & books

Libraries, tools and laboratories

Media and ICT

Addresses the need for plurality of material and teacherautonomy/ professional independence to use suchmaterial.


26/34

Systemic reform


27/34

Systemic Reform

Covers need for academic planning for monitoring

quality

Reaffirms faith in local self government

Proposes systematic activity mapping of functions

appropriate at relevant levels of local selfgovernment

Simultaneously ensuring financial autonomy on

the basis of the funds-must-follow-functionsprinciple.


28/34

Systemic Reform

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

Recommends changing the typology of questionsso that reasoning and creative abilities replace rotelearning


29/34

Udega to saaton aasmaano ki khabar le

aayega.

Udaaoge to chhat pe jaakar baith jayega.

(Were she to fly she would bring tidings fromacross the infinite skies;

Were you to make her fly, she would butconfine herself to sitting on the rooftop)


30/34


31/34

Future Steps

Development of syllabi and textbooks based on the

following considerations:

Appropriateness of topics and themes for relevantstages of childrens development

Continuity from one level to the next

Pervasive resonance of the values enshrined in the

Constitution of India in the organisation ofknowledge in all subjects

Inter-disciplinary and thematic linkages between

topics listed for different school subjects, whichfall under discrete disci linar areas


32/34

Future Steps

Linkages between school knowledge in different

subjects and childrens everyday experiences

Infusion of environment related knowledge andconcern in all subjects and at all levels

Sensitivity to gender, caste and class parity,peace, health and needs of children withdisabilities

Integration of work related attitudes and values inevery subject and at all levels

Need to nurture aesthetic sensibility and values


33/34

Future Steps

Linkage between school and college syllabi; avoid

overlapping

Using the potential of media and new informationtechnology in all subjects

Encouraging flexibility and creativity in all areas ofknowledge and its construction by children


34/34


Highlights the value of interaction with:

environment, peers,

older people to enhance learning; grandpa

Learning tasks must be designed to enable children toseek out knowledge from sites other than textbooks.

Need therefore to move away from the Herbartian

lesson plan to preparing plans and activities thatchallenge children to think and try out what they arelearning.

k desiraju

Documents