National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF 2005)

1
National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF 2005)
By Indu Goswami
2
NCF 2005 - Background

• It is the outcome of a mountain of labor spread
  over ten months of 21 National Focus Groups
  supervised by a National Steering Committee and
  chaired by well-known scientist former chairman
  of University Grants Commission Prof. Yash Pal.
  The steering committee comprising 35 highly
  respected educationists professors, NGO
  leaders, school teachers, intellectuals from
  across the country edited, abridged and
  incorporated the recommendations of the 21 focus
  groups into the draft NCF 2005

3
NCF 2005 Aims of Education

• Based on our Constitutions Vision of India
• Independence of thought and action
• Learning to respond to new situations flexibly
  and creatively
• Pre-disposition for participation in democratic
  processes social change
• Empower All children to learn

4
A Mothers Response

• Our syllabus gets more massive and moves
  beyond the teaching capacity of the teachers so
  they rush through the contents with tedious
  methodology. Students cannot meet the attention
  span requirement in the classrooms and either
  fail at comprehension or blank out into
  daydreaming. Newer topics of many different
  subjects are covered even before the previous
  ones have been chewed over.
• The burden of the syllabus is then passed on
  to the parents or tuition classes. Little
  children burdened with loads of education on
  their shoulders trip from school to tuition
  classes, bypassing childhood. A section of
  students study harder and harder to beat each
  other to the top slot. Majority of the students
  are hounded by parents and teachers to study
  harder and become stressed, some requiring even
  clinical treatment.

5
NCF 2005 National Focus Groups

• Perspectives
• Learning Knowledge
• Curricular Areas Assessment
• Systematic Reforms

6
Perspectives - Guiding Principles for Curriculum
Development

• Connecting knowledge to the life outside of
  school
• Learning shifts away from rote
• Curriculum enrichment going beyond the
  textbooks
• Making exams more flexible by integrating them
  with classroom life
• Nurturing a caring identity

7
Perspectives

• The Child as Learner What should be Learnt
• NCF Perspectives Commonly Held Views
• All children are motivated -gt Not true of
  large numbers of
• capable of learning children
• Children learn in a variety -gt Children learn
  in limited way
• of ways
• Child as a critical learner -gt Child as
  passive imbibers
• and as the constructor of of
  textbook information
• of knowledge
  providing set answers to all
• questions
• Developing capacity for -gt Developing generally
  only
• abstract thinking, reflection skills
  necessary to helping
• work are most important students pass
  or excel in
• aspects of learning
  examinations.

8
Learning Knowledge

• Local Knowledge is rich source of learning for
  All Children
• Knowledge brought into school home language
• Integrating outside world and school natural
  environment
• Integrating outside world and school cultural
  environment

9
Learning Knowledge

• Focuses on the child as an active learner
• Recognizes need for developing a enabling
  environment
• Highlights the value of interaction with
• environment,
• peers,
• older people to enhance learning
• Learning tasks must be designed to enable
  children to seek out knowledge from sites other
  than textbooks.
• Need to move away from the rigid lesson planning
  to planning and designing activities that
  challenge children to think and try out what they
  are learning.

10
Curriculum Areas Assessments

• Traditional Other Areas
• Language Art Education
• Mathematics Health Physical
• Science Education for Peace
• Social Sciences Habitat Learning

11
Curriculum Areas Assessments - Language

• Three language formula reaffirmed importance of
  home language as a medium of instruction
• Multi-Lingualism as resource learning needs to
  build a sound language pedagogy of mother tongue
• Position of English and recommendations
• Achieve basic English proficiency in 8 years of
  elementary education within four years

12
Curriculum Areas Assessments -Mathematics

• A majority of children have a sense of fear
  failure of Math's they tend to give up early.
• Textbooks are replete with problems, exercises
  and methods of evaluation which are repetitive
  and mechanical
• Focus on childs ability to think and reason
• Visualize and handle abstractions
• Formulate and solve problems

13
Curriculum Areas Assessments -Science

• Science should nurture curiosity creativity
  particularly in relationship to environment
• Science teaching should be placed in the context
  of childrens environment to help them to examine
  and analyze their everyday
• experiences
• Awareness of environmental concerns by involving
  outdoor project work. Environment education to be
  made part of every subject

14
Curriculum Areas Assessments Social Sciences

• Equip children to think critically on social
  issues
• Recognize disciplinary markers so that content is
  not eroded, but also emphasizes integration of
  themes.
• Recommends paradigm shift to study social
  sciences from the perspective of marginalized
  groups
• Gender justice and sensitivity to the issues of
  tribal and socially deprived groups, and minority
  sensibilities must inform all sectors of social
  sciences.
• Significance of history conception of past and
  civic identity

15
NCF 2005 Other Areas

• Art Education
• Covers four major spheres of music, dance, visual
  arts and theatre.
• Focus on interactive approaches, not instruction
  because goal is to promote aesthetic awareness
  and enable children to express themselves in
  different forms
• Health Physical Education
• Success in school depends on nutrition and well
  planned physical activities

16
NCF 2005 Other Areas (contd.)

• Education for Peace
• As a precondition for national development in
  view of growing tendency towards intolerance and
  violence.
• Habitat and Learning
• Work should be infused in all subjects from
  primary stage upwards
• Agencies offering work opportunities outside the
  school should be formally recognized.

17
NCF 2005 Systematic Reforms

• Covers need for academic planning for monitoring
  quality
• Reaffirms faith in local self government
• Teacher education should focus on developing
  professional identity of the teacher
• Examination reforms to reduce the psychological
  stress, particularly on children in Class X and
  XII

18
Teacher Education for Curriculum Renewal
(Major Shifts)

• Teacher-centric - gt
• Teacher direction and - gt decisions
  
• Teacher guidance and - gt monitoring
• Learning passive - gt reception
• Learning within four - gt walls
• Knowledge as given - gt and fixed

• Learner-centric
• Learner autonomy
• Facilitates supports and encourages learning
• Active participation in learning
• Learning in wider social context
• Knowledge evolves is created

19
NCF 2005 Way Forward

• Development of syllabi and textbooks based on
  following
• considerations
• Appropriateness of topics and themes for relevant
  stages of childrens development
• Continuity from one level to the next
• Pervasive resonance of the values enshrined in
  the Constitution of India in organization of
  knowledge in all subjects
• Inter-disciplinary and thematic linkages between
  topics listed for different school subjects,
  which fall under discrete disciplinary areas

20
Way Forward (contd.)

• Linkages between school knowledge in different
  subjects and childrens everyday experiences
• Infusion of environment related knowledge and
  concern in all subjects and at all levels
• Sensitivity to gender, caste and class parity,
  peace, health and needs of children with
  disabilities
• Integration of work related attitudes and values
  in every subject and at all levels
• Need to nurture aesthetic sensibility and values

21
THANK YOU