Education minister releases 'mandate document' for National Curriculum Framework

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday released the "mandate document" for a common curriculum framework under the new National Education Policy (NEP) and described it as a step towards decolonisation of the Indian education system.

"The NEP is the philosophy, National Curriculum Framework is the pathway and the mandate document released today is the constitution to champion the changing demands of the 21st century and positively impact the future," he said at an event in Bengaluru.

"The mandate document will bring about a paradigm shift with focus on holistic development of children, emphasis on skilling, vital role of teachers, learning in the mother tongue, cultural rootedness. It is also a step towards the decolonisation of the Indian education system," he added.

He suggested adopting an app-based process to enable people to give their suggestions on the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) which he said is a document of society.

The National Education Policy 2020 recommended the development of NCF in four areas -- school education, early childhood care and education, teacher education and adult education.

For providing inputs for the development of these curriculum frameworks, 25 themes based on the perspectives of the NEP are identified under three categories.

These are curriculum and pedagogy, cross-cutting issues, and other important areas of NEP focussing on systemic changes and reforms.

The minister said that central to the implementation of the transformative NEP is the new NCF which will empower and enable outstanding teaching and learning in the country by converting the vision of the NEP into reality in schools and classrooms.

The development of the NCF is being guided by the National Steering Committee (NSC), chaired by Dr K Kasturirangan, and supported by the Mandate Group, along with the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT).

The mandate document proposes delineating the process of development and characteristics of the NCF and providing clear and specific anchors for the NCF to the vision, principles, and approach of the education policy.

"The process designed ensures the seamless integration imagined -- vertically (across stages) and horizontally (across subjects in the same stage) in the NEP 2020 -- to ensure holistic, integrated, and multi-disciplinary education. It enables the critical linkage between the curriculum of schools with the curriculum of teacher education as an integral part of the transformative reforms envisioned by the NEP 2020..., thus enabling rigorous preparation, continuous professional development, and a positive working environment for all our teachers," the document stated.

"It informs the creation of opportunities for life-long learning for all citizens in the country. Directly useable by and relatable to the most important stakeholders in education -- teachers, students, parents, and communities across the country -- to enable and empower, change and improve the reality of education practice," it added.

The NCF has been revised four times so far -- in 1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005. The proposed revision will be a fifth of the framework.

The revision of the curriculum framework will be in sync with the implementation of the examination reforms such as a uniform assessment and evaluation system under the proposed National Assessment Centre as proposed by the NEP.

According to the mandate document, questions such as what are the ways to implement home language as the medium of instruction, what challenges were faced in organising online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, which subjects should be added in social sciences to widen the choice of subjects for greater flexibility at the secondary stage will form the basis of the new NCF.

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