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Unit 10: National Curriculum Framework (2005)

reiterated the necessity to review the National Curriculum Framework for School Education Notes
2000 in the light of Learning without Burden (1993).
The National Curriculum Framework -2005 has been brought out by the NCERT through a
wide-ranging process of deliberations and consultations. The document was approved by the
Central Advisory Board of Education in September, 2005. So, this carriculum is named as
(National curriculum framework - 2005). The document proposes reform in various aspects of
school education at all the stages in the following areas: Syllabus and Textbooks; Pedagogic
Practices; Time Management in School; Assessment; Learning Resource; School Ethos including
academic monitoring and effective leadership; Arts, Craft, Work, Peace and Health and
Information and Communication Technology. Realising the connectivity of these reforms with
the existing practices the document also proposes reform in examination and teacher education.
The National Curriculum Framework, while placing the learner as the constructor of knowledge,
emphasises that curriculum, syllabus and textbooks should enable the teacher to organise
classroom experiences in consonance with the child’s nature and environment, and providing
opportunities for all children. Significant changes are recommended in all the curricular areas
with a view to making education more relevant to the present day and future needs in order to
alleviate the stress children are coping with today. The NCF recommends the softening of
subject boundaries so that children can get a taste of integrated knowledge and joy of
understanding.

The term National Curriculum Framework is often wrongly construed to mean that an
instrument of uniformity is being proposed.

10.1.1 Guiding Principles

We need to plan and pay attention to systemic matters that will enable us to implement many
of the good ideas that have already been articulated in the past.
Paramount among these are :
• connecting knowledge to life outside the school,
• ensuring that learning is shifted away from rote methods,
• enriching the curriculum to provide for overall development of children rather than remain
textbook centric,
• making examinations more flexible and integrated into classroom life and,
• nurturing an over-riding identity informed by caring concerns within the democratic
polity of the country.
• The Constitution of India guarantees equality of status and opportunity to all citizens.
Continued exclusion of vast numbers of children from education and the disparities caused
through private and public school systems challenge the efforts towards achieving equality.
Education should function as an instrument of social transformation and an egalitarian
social order.
10.1.2 The Quality Dimension
Even as the system attempts to reach every child, the issue of quality presents a new range of
challenges. The belief that quality goes with privilege is clearly irreconcilable with the vision
of participatory democracy that India upholds and practises in the political sphere. Its practise
in the sphere of education demands that the education available to all children in different
regions and sections of society has a comparable quality. J.P. Naik had described equality,
quality and quantity as the ‘elusive triangle’ of Indian education. Dealing with this metaphorical
triangle requires a deeper theoretical understanding of quality than has been available. UNESCO’s

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