New panel to devise school curriculum

The NCFs will also guide pedagogy, may help in revision of books to make them contemporary and set the tone for early childhood education, a neglected space that was highlighted in the national education policy (NEP) 2020.

“The committee will discuss different aspects of school education, early childhood care and education (ECCE), teacher education, and adult education keeping in focus all the recommendations of the NEP 2020 related to these four areas for proposing curriculum reforms,” the education ministry said after a meeting hosted by education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The 12-member committee will develop four NCFs—for school education, for early childhood care and education, for teacher education and for adult education.

The Kasturirangan committee will have academicians of repute including American-Indian mathematician Manjul Bhargava, Michel Diano, an Indian author of French origin and Najma Akhtar, the vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. Besides, the steering committee has members such as Milind Kamble, a Maharashtra-based entrepreneur and chairman of IIM-Jammu, and Mahesh Chandra Pant, chancellor of National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration.

The last NCF was devised in 2005. The NCFs will be key to implementing the NEP in school education. Kasturirangan was also the head of the committee that drafted the NEP 2020 and Bhargava was part of his team.

The new committee “will discuss the position papers finalized by the national focus groups on different aspects of all the above four areas…will draw inputs from state curriculum frameworks”. The four NCFs would also reflect upon the implications of situations such as the covid-19 pandemic on education and suggest ways for future readiness. “While convening its meetings, committee may invite subject experts, scholars, educationists, etc. as and when required and deliberate and decide upon the course of actions with the objective to meet the timelines of the strategy for the development of NCFs,” the ministry said in a statement.

The committee will finalize the NCFs after incorporating suggestions from various stakeholders including states, NCERT and the Central Advisory Board on Education, an advisory body of the education ministry. Its tenure will be three years.

The Union government approved the new NEP in July 2020, the first in almost three decades, and post deliberations for almost six years. It has provisions for several education reforms in school and higher education. It has also redrawn the schooling system on a 5+3+3+4 formula instead of the current 10+2 model.