Page 39 - EducationWorld March 2023

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan (centre right) & Dr. K. Kasturirangan (centre left): standardisation objective

The four-part NCF will be the outcome of a national comes of children — especially school-leavers — from dif-
consultative process set in motion last year by the Union ferent states. Morover implementation of NCFSE and the
education ministry and the Delhi-based National Council new NCF will facilitate mobility of labour countrywide and
for Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Accord- create a level playing field for children from all parts of the
ing to a NCERT spokesperson, the steering committee has country.
received over 1.5 lakh inputs, 600 District level consultation “India is the sole country worldwide which has 34 school
reports, 608 NCF position papers from 27 state govern- examination boards, each prescribing their own syllabus/
ments and reports of 25 national focus groups. curriculum. A common curriculum delivered by all national
This national consultation effort is important because and state board-affiliated schools will ensure all school-
the new NCF should be accepted by all 28 states and seven leavers countrywide are equipped with equivalent compe-
Union territories of India. With education in the concurrent tencies and prepared to do well in common entrance exams
list of the Constitution, state governments have the right to which are becoming popular in higher education. State gov-
design their own school curriculums. However, the national ernments which are refusing to accept the new NCFSE and
interest demands that K-12 education is standardised coun- NCF in general for stupid sub-nationalist reasons, are doing
trywide. Therefore, the NCF Mandate Document issued by their children a great disservice. They are circumscribing
the education ministry last April states that “NCF enables their children’s higher education and future employment
the federal structure of school education,” and that state options. Foolish politicians and subservient academics have
governments are free to incorporate “local elements” within ruined — and continue to ruin — India’s education system,”
the broad national curriculum. says an “admittedly embittered” principal of a top-ranked
Well-informed educationists are unanimous that a com- co-ed day school in Chennai.
mon school curriculum framework is in the national inter- Yet despite the self-evident need for all states to support
est as it enables standardisation — with minor variations a common K-12 curriculum, the government of Tamil Nadu
mainly in language and humanities subjects — in K-12 is opposed to it. Tamil Nadu has also rejected NEP 2020
education countrywide. Acceptance of a common national in toto because of its opposition to the three languages
curriculum will eliminate wide disparities in learning out- learning formula. Therefore, it hasn’t participated in the

MARCH 2023 EDUCATIONWORLD 41