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Lighthouses
On The Horizon
National Curriculum Framework 2005
 In 2005 I had the privilege of serving on the Syllabus Revision Committee for Social Sciences. This was part of a mammoth exercise undertaken by the NCERT - the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005.
The beauty of the NCF is that it draws on ideas of not only university scholars but school teachers (both government and private), people working for NGO’s, at the grass root level, and individuals working in the private sector, such as myself.
Contrary to common belief, the NCF is not a prescribed curriculum that is to be uniformly imposed on schools across India. It is a framework within which schools can choose and plan curricula for children and thus respond to the diversity that exists in India.
The aim of the NCF 2005 is to “lessen the burden” on the child which means a movement away from the existing content overload to more conceptual understanding.
The guiding principles of the NCF 2005 are to connect what is being taught in the classroom to life outside the school, ensure that learning is no longer by rote, prevent curriculum from being textbook-centric, make exams more flexible, and prepare caring and sensitive citizens.
The new NCERT syllabi and textbooks are now available for the schools and they reflect much of what has been touted by the NCF 2005.
I believe that due to this initiative, we will see more child friendly schools and I foresee teacher education institutes revamping their methodology for preparing teachers.n
Trisha Sen is a senior associate with iDiscoveri
Education is a member of the national syllabus revision committee for social sciences.
NCERT
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