JOIN USThe board’s 58th meeting also unanimously endorsed the Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry’s proposal for integration of sports and physical education with the academic curriculum.
A proposal of the Culture Ministry to introduce “10 great thinkers of modern India” in the school syllabus too won approval at the day-long meeting, chaired by Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal.
He said the members underlined the need to arrest the rise of unfair practices in school education. The CABE members unanimous endorsed the need for a National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) providing for a nationally recognised framework with vertical and horizontal mobility between general and vocational education. The Group of State Education Ministers, which has already been constituted, will develop a road map for the implementation of the proposed framework incorporating the requirements and concerns of all the states.
While the ministry has already introduced a Bill in Parliament to control unfair practices in higher education, it was agreed at the meeting to initiate a similar measure in relation to school education, Sibal said.
A CABE committee comprising ministers educationists and other had been formed to formulate the draft legislation. It would prepare a preliminary draft in about three months.
Such a law was necessary to check malpractices, particularly in private schools, “essentially to prevent the rule of money power in this sector,” he said.
Another CABE committee would be constituted to prepare a draft Bill seeking to extend the provisions of the right to free and compulsory education Act up to class X, Sibal said.
The draft legislation would be discussed with students, teachers, parents and community members.
“It was felt that every child in the country – irrespective of gender, caste, class or community must have the right to at least 10 years of formal schooling,” the minister said.
Education ministers from the states attended the meeting. The state governments were urged to identify regional and local skills and develop curriculum content to feed into the vocational education framework.