15 years on, schools to get new curriculum

NEW DELHI: The process of the national curriculum framework (NCF) review, the biggest exercise in school education reforms, has started with national council of educational research and training (NCERT) submitting its proposal to the ministry of human resource development earlier this month.
As per the proposal, by April 2021 the new curriculum would be ready and the development of the new school textbooks will commence. The textbooks will be ready by April 202 and the new curriculum content will be reduced in each subject to its core essentials. According to government sources, the development of the new curriculum will be in sync with the reforms proposed in the National Education Policy 2020 which is likely to be placed before the Union Cabinet by the end of this month.
The review of the NCF is a comprehensive exercise which looks at content and methods of teaching in schools. NCERT started its internal work from November and submitted its proposal for setting up of the steering committee. The revision of NCF will be happening after 15 years. The introduction of the new NCF will be in sync with the implementation of the examination reforms such as uniform assessment and evaluation system under the proposed National Assessment Centre as proposed by the NEP 2020.
According to a senior HRD official, NCERT has already started the shortlisting of the experts for the 22 working groups, which include specialists who could contribute in categories such as inclusion, gender education, educational technology/ ICT, pre-school education, foundational literacy and numeracy, teacher education and assessment in education, among others.
According to a government source, “The (national education) policy is likely to be announced by end of this month. MHRD will also announce the steering committee and chairperson around the same time.” According to the draft NEP 2020 being finalised at present, the “new and comprehensive NCF 2020 will be formulated based on the principles of this National Education Policy 2020,” and “reduction in, and increased flexibility of, school curriculum content … must be accompanied by parallel changes in school textbooks.”