INTRODUCTION :

A key milestone in India’s march towards achieving the goal of universalisation of

elementary education was the adoption of the NPE-1986, which was followed by publication
of the ‘Programme of Action (PoA) 1986’ for its implementation. Also, India’s educational
goals and strategies were re-examined and were reframed in the National Policy on Education
(NPE). The NPE 1986 as modified in 1992 embraces a comprehensive view of UEE . It
emphasises that “up to a given level, all students, irrespective of caste, creed, location or sex,
have access to education of comparative quality” (NUEPA, 2014: 6). Hence, it embraces
inclusive education; adult, formal and non-formal; elementary education (up to 14 years of
age) and early childhood care and education (ECCE). The policy document also argues for a
“substantial improvement in the quality of education”

The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF-2005) Since the renewal of NPE-1986,
efforts had been invested towards establishing a national system of education within the
NPE-1986’s broad framework. Furthermore, decentralisation of the curriculum for increased
specificity to the local context, is what SSA advocates. Hence, NCF-2005 prepared by the
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) aims at doing just that.
NCF-2005 outlines broad principles for States and UTs to follow while designing the detailed
syllabus, textbooks and making appropriate teaching-learning materials available in schools
from early childhood to the higher secondary stage of education. According to this report,
NCF-2005 aims at building a system and schools that are “child-friendly and inclusive”.

Salient features of NCF 2005 :

 NPE 1986, assigned a special role to NCERT in preparing and promoting NCF.
 Yash Pal Committee Report, ‘Learning without Burden’ (1993) observes that learning has
become a source of burden and stress on children and their parents.
 Considering these observations, Executive Committee of NCERT decided at its meeting
of July 14, 2004, to revise the National Curriculum Framework.
 The process of development of NCF was initiated in November, 2004 by setting up
various structures like National Steering Committee Chaired by Prof. Yash Pal and
twenty-one National Focus Groups on themes of curricular areas, systemic reforms and
national concerns.
 Wide ranging deliberations and inputs from multiple sources involving different levels of
stakeholders helped in shaping the draft of NCF.
 The draft NCF was translated into 22 languages listed in the VIII Schedule of the
Constitution. The translated versions were widely disseminated and consultations with
stakeholders at district and local level helped in developing the final draft.
 The NCF was approved by Central Advisory Board on Education in September, 2005.

Vision and Perspective of NCF 2005

 To uphold values enshrined in the Constitution of India
 To reduce of curriculum load
 To ensure quality education for all
 To initiate certain systemic changes

Guiding Principles of NCF 2005 :

 Connecting knowledge to life outside the School

 Ensuring that learning is shifted away from rote methods
 Enriching curriculum so that it goes beyond Text Book
 Making Examination more flexible and non-threatening
 Discuss the aims of education
 Building commitment to democratic values of equality, justice, secularism and freedom.

The NCF is a massive document of 124 pages, which is loud on words, not so
clever in its conception and quite evasive in creating any structure (both human and financial)
that would really deliver the goods. It is a deceptively challenging document insofar as it
ducks the responsibility of identifying the source of the accumulated "critical mass of
discomfort" that is supposed to have provided "a special ignition" for those who got involved
in its preparation. The NCF puts considerable emphasis on the language potentials of
children, language education and knowledge creation. (Page 37) "The language environment
of disadvantaged learners needs to be enriched... within a broad cognitive philosophy
(incorporating Vygotskian, Chomskyan, and Piagetian principles)". Are these the indicators
of the parameters through which the "local" are to be given the messages of acceptability
(mark the patronising tone) of "their homes, communities, languages and cultures"?
Notwithstanding fervent pleas for creating spaces for "tribal" and "street" (possibly of Aamir
Khan tapori type) languages, the search for identifying the principles of "cognitive
philosophy" has miserably failed to locate any Indian thinker
NCF 2005 Chapter wise summary :

CHAPTER 1
• Strengthening a national system of education in a pluralistic society.
• Reducing the curriculum load based on insights provided in ‘Learning Without Burden’.
• Systemic changes in tune with curricular reforms.
• Curricular practices based on the values enshrined in the Constitution, such as social justice,
equality, and secularism.
• Ensuring quality education for all children.
• Building a citizenry committed to democratic practices, values, sensitivity towards gender
justice, problems faced by the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, needs of the
disabled, and capacities to participate in economic and political processes.
CHAPTER 2
• Reorientation of our perception of learners and learning.
• Holistic approach in the treatment of learners’ development and learning.
• Creating an inclusive environment in the classroom for all students.
• Learner engagement for construction of knowledge and fostering of creativity.
• Active learning through the experiential mode.
• Adequate room for voicing children’s thoughts, curiosity, and questions in curricular
practices.
• Connecting knowledge across disciplinary boundaries to provide a broader frame work for
insightful construction of knowledge.
• Forms of learner engagement — observing, exploring, discovering, analysing, critical
reflection, etc. — are as important as the content of knowledge.
• Activities for developing critical perspectives on socio-cultural realities need to find space
in curricular practices.
• Local knowledge and children’s experiences are essential components of text books and
pedagogic practices.
• Children engaged in undertaking environment-related projects may contribute to generation
of knowledge that could help create a transparent public database on India’s environment.
• The school years are a period of rapid development, with changes and shifts in hildren’s
capabilities, attitudes and interests that have implications for choosing and organising the
content and process of knowledge.
CHAPTER 3
Language
• Language skills — speech and listening, reading and writing — cut across school subjects
and Disciplines. Their foundational role in children’s construction of knowledge right from
elementary classes through senior secondary classes needs to be recognised.
• A renewed effort should be made to implement the three-language formula, emphasising he
recognition of children’s home language(s) or mother tongue(s) as the best medium of
instruction. These include tribal languages.
• English needs to find its place along with other Indian languages.
• The multilingual character of Indian society should be seen as a resource for the enrichment
of school life.
Mathematics
• Mathematisation (ability to think logically, formulate and handle abstractions) rather than
‘knowledge’ of mathematics (formal and mechanical procedures) is the main goal of teaching
mathematics.
• The teaching of mathematics should enhance children’s ability to think and reason, to
visualise and handle abstractions, to formulate and solve problems. Access to quality
mathematics education is the right of every child.
Science
• Content, process and language of science teaching must be commensurate with the learner’s
age-range and cognitive reach.
• Science teaching should engage the learners in acquiring methods and processes that will
nurture their curiosity and creativity, particularly in relation to the environment.
• Science teaching should be placed in the wider context of children;s environment to equip
them with the requisite knowledge and skills to enter the world of work.
• Awareness of environmental concerns must permeate the entire school curriculum.
Social Sciences
• Social science content needs to focus on conceptual understanding rather than lining up
facts to be memorised for examination, and should equip children with the ability to think
independently and reflect critically on social issues.
• Interdisciplinary approaches, promoting key national concerns such as gender, justice,
human rights, and sensitivity to marginalised groups and minorities.
• Civics should be recast as political science, and the significance of history as a shaping
influence on the children’s conception of the past and civic identity should be recognised.
Work
• School curricula from the pre-primary stage to the senior secondary stage need to be
reconstructed to realise the pedagogic potential of work as a pedagogic medium in knowledge
acquisition, developing values and multiple-skill formation.
Art
• Arts (folk and classical forms of music and dance, visual arts, puppetry, clay work, theatre,
etc.) and heritage crafts should be recognised as integral components of the school
curriculum.
• Awareness of their relevance to personal, social, economic and aesthetic needs should be
built among parents, school authorities and administrators.
• The arts should comprise a subject at every stage of school education.
Peace
• Peace-oriented values should be promoted in all subjects throughout the school years with
the help of relevant activities.
• Peace education should form a component of teacher education.
Health and Physical Education
• Health and physical education are necessary for the overall development of learners.
Through health and physical education programmes (including yoga), it may be possible to
handle successfully the issues of enrolment, retention and completion of school.
Habitat and Learning
• Environmental education may be best pursued by infusing the issues and concerns of the
environment into the teaching of different disciplines at all levels while ensuring that
adequate time is earmarked for pertinent activities.
CHAPTER 4
• Availability of minimum infrastructure and material facilities, and support for planning a
flexible daily schedule, are critical for improved teacher performance.
• A school culture that nurtures children’s identities as ‘learners’ enhances the potential and
interests of each child.
• Specific activities ensuring participation of all children — abled and disabled — are
essential conditions for learning by all.
• The value of self-discipline among learners through democratic functioning is as relevant as
ever.
• Participation of community members in sharing knowledge and experience in a subject area
helps in forging a partnership between school and community.
• Reconceptualisation of learning resources in terms of
– textbooks focused on elaboration of concepts, activities, problems and exercises
encouraging reflective thinking and group work.
– supplementary books, workbooks, teachers’ handbooks, etc. based on fresh thinking and
new perspectives.
– multimedia and ICT as sources for two-way interaction rather than one-way reception.
– school library as an intellectual space for teachers, learners and members of the community
to deepen their knowledge and connect with the wider world.
• Decentralised planning of school calendar and daily schedule and autonomy for teacher
professionalism practices are basic to creating a learning environment.
CHAPTER 5
• Quality concern, a key feature of systemic reform, implies the system’s capacity to reform
itself by enhancing its ability to remedy its own weaknesses and to develop new capabilities.
• It is desirable to evolve a common school system to ensure comparable quality in different
regions of the country and also to ensure that when children of different backgrounds
study together, it improves the overall quality of learning and enriches the school ethos.
• A broad framework for planning upwards, beginning with schools for identifying focus
areas and subsequent consolidation at the cluster and block levels, could form a decentralised
planning strategy at the district level.
• Meaningful academic planning has to be done in a participatory manner by headmasters and
teachers.
• Monitoring quality must be seen as a process of sustaining interaction with individual
schools in terms of teaching–learning processes.
• Teacher education programmes need to be reformulated and strengthened so that the teacher
can be an :
– encouraging, supportive and humane facilitator in teaching–learning situations to enable
learners (students) to discover their talents, to realise their physical and intellectual
potentialities to the fullest, to develop character and desirable social and human values to
function as responsible citizens; and
– active member of a group of persons who make conscious efforts for curricular renewal so
that it is relevant to changing social needs and the personal needs of learners.
• Reformulated teacher education programmes that place thrust on the active involvement of
learners in the process of knowledge construction, shared context of learning, teacher as a
facilitator of knowledge construction, multidisciplinary nature of knowledge of teacher
education, integration theory and practice dimensions, and engagement with issues and
concerns of contemporary Indian society from a critical perspective.
• Centrality of language proficiency in teacher education and an integrated model of teacher
education for strengthening professionalisation of teachers assume significance.
• In-service education needs to become a catalyst for change in school practices.
• The Panchayati Raj system should be strengthened by evolving a mechanism to regulate the
functioning of parallel bodies at the village level so that democratic participation in
development can be realised.
• Reducing stress and enhancing success in examinations necessitate:
– a shift away from content-based testing to problem solving skills and understanding.
The prevailing typology of questions asked needs a radical change.
– a shift towards shorter examinations.
– an examination with a ‘flexible time limit’.
– setting up of a single nodal agency for coordinating the design and conduct of entrance
examinations.
• Institutionalisation of work-centred education as an integrated part of the school curriculum
from the pre-primary to the +2 stage is expected to lay the necessary foundation for
reconceptualising and restructuring vocational education to meet the challenges of a
globalised economy.
• Vocational Education and Training (VET) need to be conceived and implemented in a
mission mode, involving the establishment of separate VET centres and institutions from
the level of village clusters and blocks to sub-divisional/district towns and metropolitan areas
in collaboration with the nation wide spectrum of facilities already existing in this sector.
• Availability of multiple textbooks to widen teachers’ choices and provide for the diversity
in children’s needs and interests.
• Sharing of teaching experiences and diverse classroom practices to generate new ideas a n d
facilitate innovation and experimentation.
• Development of syllabi, textbooks and teaching-learning resources could be carried out in a
decentralised and participatory manner involving teachers, experts from universities, NGOs
and teachers’ organisations.
Crucial goals of the NCF-2005 are:

• It advocates innovative pedagogic practices, rather than a top-down approach, for making
learning an exciting experience.

• It aims at eliminating gender and caste biases by proposing that teachers design lessons that
are gender and caste sensitive. This has been demonstrated by providing an example of
“Talking Pictures”.

• It recommends the promotion of inclusive education and flexibility of assessment methods.

• It argues for incorporating design features into the curriculum that would assist educators
with organising classroom teaching in consonance with the child’s milieu.

• It advocates designing curriculum on the principles of NCF-2005 for reflecting the

commitment to Universal Elementary Education (UEE).

• The NCF-2005 aims to bring about a significant shift in the teaching and learning processes
by advocating for a ‘constructivist approach’, which is responsive to each child’s need. This
last goal which aims at adopting a constructivist approach to teaching-learning processes
responsive to each child’s need is central to the reform, and a key part of moving away from
the ‘textbooks and tests’ which previously described the NCF-2000.

It is true that feeling, intuition and experience - all form the basis of "knowledge".
But where is the space for reason, rationality, scientific spirit and "information" based
thereon! Why is "information" seen as antithetical to "knowledge"? Amin's thrust on the
"loosening of the informational noose" is almost a mirror image of the NCF formulation: "the
tendency to confuse knowledge with information must be curbed" (page 96). The document
leaves no one in doubt that "local knowledge" and "local belief systems", rather than the
scientific spirit, constitute "a rich storehouse of information" (page 29). As an afterthought
perhaps, the NCF concedes: "However, all forms of local knowledge must be mediated
through constitutional values and principles" (this proviso was missing in the original draft).
It still falls short of providing adequate space for the voice of reason.
Critical view on NCF 2005 :

The educational aims, identified by NCF-2005, as outlined in the EFA 2015 National
Review report document also outlines crucial social values that learners should learn. They
are firstly, a commitment towards developing equality, justice, respect for human dignity,
freedom, democratic values, secularism and rights and concern for the well-being of others.
Secondly, being flexible in responding to new situations by displaying willingness to unlearn
and relearn. And lastly, developing aesthetic skills. Consequently textbooks, syllabus,
pedagogic practices and assessment frameworks were designed based on these guidelines
embedded in the NCF-2005. This was done at the Central Government level in order to
facilitate curriculum reform at the State level. NCF-2005 acknowledges the diversity of the
Indian context and insists upon “a menu of quality curricula packages be developed” instead
of one textbook for all in a particular State. It is crucial to highlight here that the NCF-2005 is
not mandatory for the various States to follow.

Now, the draft NCF gives expression to several of the common concerns expressed by
everybody and every commission or committee, at least, for the last 40 years. This is in the
nature of lip service, because they will not be addressed for the lack of political will both for
resources and implementation:
1. Removal of burden and stress on children.
2. Common school system to ensure that children of different background study together.
3. Mother tongue is the best medium of instruction.
4. Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE).
5. Flexible school timings.
6. Books and reference materials availability.
7. Examination reforms; typology of questions; replace memorising.
8. Transparency and internal assessment.
9. Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE).
10. Work-centred education and vocationalisation.

Of these, the first three will never be achieved because of a moribund approach to
the minority rights under Article 30 of the Constitution. It is high time we appreciated this.

There are certain wider implications which given by NCF 2005. Two things. One
is, the international document which talks about minority rights, particularly the last
declaration, namely, the Declaration of the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic,
Religious and Linguistic Minorities, 1992. Incidentally, our country does not have any
national or ethnic minorities. We are one people, but we have religious and linguistic
minorities. But, in a preamble to this Declaration, what the United Nations says is,
“Emphasising that the constant promotion and realisation of the rights of persons belonging
to national, ethnic, linguistics, religious minorities as an integral part of the development of
society as a whole.” So, protection of minorities is an integral part of the development of the
society as a whole.

It is very essential that at the school level right from primary stage, deliberate,
planned and sustained efforts are made to inculcate basic human values among the students.
Values are best initiated by a mother to her small child under her tender care in the secure
atmosphere of home.
Looking from the national perspective, while talking only about minority rights, we
must consider that ultimately we don´t want the minorities to be ghettoized, but it should be a
matter of equality and tolerance among all the communities. Thus a perverted sense of
secularism has thwarted basic education principles being operational.
In so far as the ECCE is concerned, when education was made a Fundamental Right
for children in the age-group of 6 to 14, by the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, ECCE
was sought to be achieved by redrafting Article 45 and adding clause(K) to Article 51A
providing for Fundamental Duties. But nothing more has happened in this area, thereafter.

This objective has no place in the proposed NCF. While doing this, the NCF has
contravened the mandate of both:

i) The National Policy of Education 1986 (NEP) which still holds the field, and

ii) The judgment of the Supreme Court approving the NCFSE.

The NCF 2005 should have given more effort in the following areas –

 Teaching of English and Indian languages.

 Textbook production- plurality of textbook design.

 Teacher autonomy and systematic support structures.

 Mobilizing resources from related departments and sectors

 Meaningful use of technology in the classroom and in the system.

 Examination reforms- quality of questions and processes we employ introducing open

book exam.

It should be note that teachers, parents, school development and monitoring

committee members and children were not involved in the preparation of the NCF
report. And like always the NCF 2005 fails to mention, or recommend, how we can
translate the theoretical issues into actionable programmes.

Regarding textbook, the NCF 2005 recommends plurality of text books. Most
States use uniform textbooks. This is itself a very controversial issue.

It is said that the teacher only facilitates the situation; the child constructs the
knowledge itself. With the kind of syllabus we have, the teacher cannot facilitate the
construction of knowledge by the child, unless the independence is given to the
teacher regarding syllabus preparation. The syllabus has to be more fluid.