Page 191 - DEDU501_DEVELOPMENT_OF_EDUCATION_SYSTEM_ENGLISH

Unit 21: Problems of Secondary Education...

21.2 Aims of Secondary Education Notes

The National Curriculum Framework-2005 Aims of Education: The National Curriculum
Framework taking cues from ‘Learning without Burden’ (1993) and seeking guidance from the
Constitutional vision of India as a secular, egalitarian and pluralistic society, founded on the
values of social justice and equality, identifies certain broad aims of secondary education. These
include :
(i) independence of thought and action,
(ii) sensitivity to others’ well being and feelings,
(iii) learning to respond to new situations in a flexible and creative manner,
(iv) pre-disposition towards participation in democratic processes and the ability to work towards
and contribute to economic processes and social change.
Guiding Principles: The fact that learning has become a source of burden and stress on children
is an evidence of a deep distortion in educational aims and quality. To correct this distortion, the
present National Curriculum Framework proposes five guiding principles for curriculum
development:
(a) connecting knowledge to life outside the school;
(b) ensuring that learning shifts away from rote methods;
(c) enriching the curriculum to provide for overall development of children rather than remain
textbook centric,
(d) making examinations more flexible and integrated into classroom life
(e) nurturing an over-riding identity informed by caring concerns within the democratic polity
of the country.

By 2020, there will be provision for universal senior secondary education and
universal retention. This will be possible because of high transition rate from 10th
to 11th standard and high retention rate in the senior secondary grades even now.
21.3 Curriculum of Secondary Education

There are so many curriculum reform in seconary education acording to national currculum
framework. Since, Curriculum Reform is a process of reforming systematically all the related
aspects of education i.e. syllabus, textbooks, classroom processes, assessment and evaluation, teacher
education and ICT therefore it needs to be planned not only connecting each of these aspects but
also interweaving them with each other e.g. if curriculum, syllabus and textbooks are being revised
it does not mean to add or delete some content, it does mean to present content enumerating
pedagogical concerns and also the emerging perspectives of assessment which demands change
in typology of questions from recall type to thought provoking questions which require higher
mental order skills.
Providing broad guidelines for the development of curriculum, syllabus and textbooks; assessment
and evaluation and also for teacher education the National Curriculum Framework-2005 in
secondary education recommends the following shifts:
1. Change in the design of encyclopedic type of syllabi and textbooks and also a change in
social ethos, which places stress on learners.
2. (As per the document this will enable learners to find their voices, nurture their curiosity-to
do things, to ask questions and pursue investigations, to improve their ability to share and
integrate their experiences with school knowledge-rather than to reproduce textual
knowledge)

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 185