JOIN USAn exercise initiated by the erstwhile UPA regime towards the end of its tenure to revise school curriculum has now been put on hold after an outfit linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh nudged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to start the process afresh, ostensibly to ensure that the review reflects the new regime’s vision on education.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) initiated process to review the national curriculum framework with the approval of the then human resource development minister M M Pallam Raju just before the Lok Sabha elections.
At the NCERT executive committee meeting in the third week of September, however, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani instructed the council to put the exercise on hold as a national commission was proposed to be set up next year to review education policy, sources told Deccan Herald.
The expert panels were reviewing the position papers at the base of the formulation of National Curriculum Framework in 2005, on various subjects including mathematics, science, use of the information and communication technology in education, arts, aesthetics and social sciences.
“The council did not begin the exercise on its own. It was initiated with the approval of the Human Resource Development Ministry (during the UPA regime). The process has now been put on hold as the minister desired so at the executive committee meeting,” the sources added.
At the meeting, Irani also asked the council to take ministry’s approval before initiating any programme or activity.