New Delhi: From villages, cities, and districts to states and union ministries, the National Curriculum is being developed through a decentralised 360-degree consultation process. The use of technology is being used to broaden the scope of the consultation process. States and UTs are playing an important role in curriculum development, demonstrating cooperative federalism.
The development of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for school education is a huge consultative exercise, not limited to the national level. In fact, for the first time, it is based on a bottom-up and paperless approach, rather than a top-down approach, sources from NCERT informed ANI.
On condition of anonymity, an NCERT official said that the NCF exercise is receiving inputs from each state and has set up 25 state focus groups each with its own set of experts on key areas, such as pedagogy, assessment, environmental studies, inclusion, knowledge of India, various disciplines like language, social sciences, science, mathematics, technology, etc.
NCERT has received inputs from 27 states in the form of 608 position papers from each of their state focus groups. These will feed into the NCF. "At least 3,000 mobile app-based surveys each is being conducted by each state/UT, of grassroots level stakeholders, such as teachers, Anganwadi workers, local communities, tradespersons, etc," NCERT official said.
"Approximately 8,391 surveyors were appointed by states and UTs for this. NCERT has already received survey reports of 1.3 lakh stakeholders so far," an official said. States and UTs were also requested to conduct district-level consultations of educationists and related experts. NCERT has received 1,502 consultation reports from states and UTs in this regard, sources said.
"NCERT is itself also directly conducting consultation meetings at the district level in several states/UTs," the official added. All Ministries of the Central government have been requested to give their input too. NCERT has already conducted two rounds of workshops with some ministries and started receiving inputs. "About 25 national focus groups have been formed by NCERT, each with almost 8-10 members, for giving inputs in the form of position papers on similar themes as those being given by States/UTs.
Therefore, these 25 papers will also be part of the total 608 Position Papers that will be examined for the development of the National Curriculum Framework," the official said. This entire process is paperless and a special portal has been designed by NCERT to receive these detailed inputs from all parts of the country, and from all categories of stakeholders.
