National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005)

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National Council for Educational Research and Training NCERT during the last many years of its existence has come up with three different National Curriculum Framework during the year 1986, 2000 and 2005 [1] This document currently provides the framework for making syllabus, [2] textbooks and teaching practices within the school education programmes in India.

The NCF 2005 [3]document draws its policy basis from earlier government reports on education as Learning Without Burden [4] and National Policy of Education 1986-1992 [5] and focus group discussion [6].

The document and its offshoot textbooks have come under different forms of reviews in the press [7] and [8]. Its draft document came under the criticism from the Central Advisory Board of Education CABE [9]. During the month of February 2008 the director Krishna Kumar in an interview also discussed the challenges [10]that are faced by the document. Here he defended against the argument that NCF2005 is not for "elite schools" in the following lines.

[11] The NCF is certainly not meant only for elite schools. Its approach and recommendations are for the entire system. A number of its recommendations, in fact, focus on rural schools. It is true that the syllabus and textbooks based on it are being used by all the CBSE schools. But several States, such as Goa, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, have already sought copyright permission to reprint them. So, NCF-based material is also being used in many State schools. More significantly, quite a few States are currently preparing their own plans for syllabus and textbook reforms. Kerala, Bihar, Mizoram and Punjab are examples of this kind. Within the next few years we expect to see an NCF-oriented curriculum design in these States. The NCERT had given a one-time grant of Rs.10 lakh to each State in the country to promote NCF in the language of the State and to compare its current syllabus with the syllabus we have proposed, so that a plan for future reforms can be made. Several States have taken up this challenge. This exercise is being carried out with the involvement of State Councils for Educational Research and Training [SCERT] and District Institutes of Education and Training [DIET]. The most recent experience is that of Uttar Pradesh, which organised a seminar in Lucknow and invited all the DIETs to participate in the process of analysing the NCF and its relevance for the State.