Srinagar: As part of the development of National Curriculum Framework (NCF), one of the twenty-five State Focus Groups (SFGs) formed to complete the position papers identified as per the NEP-2020 met at the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) division office here at Bemina.
With an aim to cast aside rigidity and exclusivity, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) which has been tasked with the responsibility of framing NCF, has formed several groups comprising experts from various fields to prepare position papers on some 25 themes/areas.
The SCERT has been nominated as a nodal agency to prepare the State Curriculum Framework (SCF) through a series of consultative meetings involving educationists, teacher educators, resource persons, representatives from Social Welfare Department, parents and neo-literates.
The NCF Committee has appointed chairmen, member secretaries and members to prepare the position papers. Four NCFs have been laid out by the NEP 2020 on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), School Education (SE), Teacher Education (TE) and Adult Education (AE) have been laid out by the NEP 2020.
All states and UTs have been asked to prepare their State Curriculum Frameworks (SCFs) passing through the process of District Level Consultations (DLC), mobile app survey and development of position papers by the State Focus Groups in 25 areas/themes identified as per the NEP, 2020.
“In all 70 questions—40 for School Education, 10 each for ECCE, Adult Education and Teacher Education—were prepared by the NCERT,” Academic Officer, G H Reshi, who has been appointed as Nodal Officer, SCF, informed.
Academic Officer, SCERT, Rubina Salma and Head, Education Planning, Management and Monitoring (EPM&M), SCERT, Riyaz Ahmad Dar, who have been appointed as member secretaries by the NCF Committee for Inclusive Education and Social Science respectively welcomed the participants.
Prof Iqbal Matto from the School of Education & Behavioural Sciences, University of Kashmir and Javed-ul-Aziz, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Kashmir have been appointed as Chairmen for Inclusive Education and Social Sciences respectively.
“The members had a thorough discussion on the multiple themes in the e-template provided by the SCERT,” Javed said. “Fortunately we have a highly capable team comprising members from various departments viz., History, Geography, Political Science and Social work.”
The questions in the template, Javed said, were distributed among the members as per their expertise and interest.
“It’s an exhaustive exercise requiring research at various levels viz., anecdotal, empirical and archival,” he said. “We shall be ready with the draft within a few days to be uploaded on the NCF tech platform,” he added.
Pertinently, the NCERT had dispatched a team last month to interact with diverse stakeholders at a consultative meet on the SCF.
“The inclusion of local flavour in the curriculum would help cast aside rigidity and exclusivity,” Prof Anita Nuna, former head, Department of Curriculum Studies, NCERT, New Delhi, said. “The National Education Policy 2020 has been designed in a manner that it allows—thorough discussions and consultative meetings with the stakeholders—the inclusion of the local flavour, value systems, socio-economic backgrounds and the best practices of any state or UT before the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is given a shape.”
A bottom-up procedure, she said, had been adopted for the first time to frame the national curriculum based on several novel concepts such as competency-based education, experiential learning, flexibility, creative and critical thinking.
