The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF 2005) was developed over 10 months by 21 national focus groups supervised by a national steering committee chaired by scientist Yash Pal. It aimed to make education more child-centered, flexible, connected to life outside school, and empower all children to learn. It recommended major reforms including focusing on understanding rather than rote learning, integrating local knowledge, assessing students in a more flexible way, and shifting teacher training to support more facilitative teaching.

1. NATIONAL CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK 2005
(NCF 2005)
By Indu Goswami

2. NCF 2005 - BACKGROUND
It is the outcome of a mountain of labor spread
over ten months of 21 National Focus Groups
supervised by a National Steering Committee and
chaired by well-known scientist & former chairman
of University Grants Commission Prof. Yash Pal.
The steering committee comprising 35 highly
respected educationists — professors, NGO
leaders, school teachers, intellectuals from across
the country — edited, abridged and incorporated
the recommendations of the 21 focus groups into
the draft NCF 2005

3. NCF 2005 – AIMS OF EDUCATION
Based on our Constitution’s Vision of India:
Independence of thought and action
Learning to respond to new situations flexibly and
creatively
Pre-disposition for participation in democratic
processes & social change
Empower All children to learn

4. A MOTHER’S RESPONSE
“Our syllabus gets more massive and moves beyond the
teaching capacity of the teachers so they rush through the
contents with tedious methodology. Students cannot meet
the attention span requirement in the classrooms and either
fail at comprehension or blank out into daydreaming. Newer
topics of many different subjects are covered even before
the previous ones have been chewed over.
The burden of the syllabus is then passed on to the parents
or tuition classes. Little children burdened with loads of
‘education’ on their shoulders trip from school to tuition
classes, bypassing childhood. A section of students study
harder and harder to beat each other to the top slot. Majority
of the students are hounded by parents and teachers to
study harder and become stressed, some requiring even
clinical treatment.”

5. NCF 2005 – NATIONAL FOCUS GROUPS
Perspectives
Learning & Knowledge
Curricular Areas & Assessment
Systematic Reforms

6. PERSPECTIVES - GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Connecting knowledge to the life outside of school
Learning shifts away from rote
Curriculum enrichment – going beyond the textbooks
Making exams more flexible by integrating them with classroom life
Nurturing a caring identity

7. PERSPECTIVES
The Child as Learner & What should be Learnt
NCF Perspectives Commonly Held Views
All children are motivated -> Not true of large numbers of
& capable of learning children
Children learn in a variety -> Children learn in limited way
of ways
Child as a ‘critical’ learner -> Child as passive imbibers
and as the constructor of of textbook information &
of knowledge providing set answers to all
questions
Developing capacity for -> Developing generally only
abstract thinking, reflection skills necessary to helping
& work are most important students pass or excel in
aspects of learning examinations.

8. LEARNING & KNOWLEDGE
Local Knowledge is rich source of learning for All Children
Knowledge brought into school – home language
Integrating outside world and school – natural
environment
Integrating outside world and school – cultural
environment

9. LEARNING & KNOWLEDGE
Focuses on the child as an active learner
Recognizes need for developing a enabling
environment
Highlights the value of interaction with:
 environment,
 peers,
 older people to enhance learning;
Learning tasks must be designed to enable
children to seek out knowledge from sites
other than textbooks.
Need to move away from the rigid lesson
planning to planning and designing activities
that challenge children to think and try out
what they are learning.

10. CURRICULUM AREAS & ASSESSMENTS
Traditional Other Areas
Language *Art Education
Mathematics *Health & Physical
Science *Education for Peace
Social Sciences *Habitat & Learning

11. CURRICULUM AREAS & ASSESSMENTS -
LANGUAGE
Three language formula reaffirmed – importance of
home language as a medium of instruction
Multi-Lingualism as resource – learning needs to build
a sound language pedagogy of mother tongue
Position of English and recommendations
Achieve basic English proficiency in 8 years of
elementary education within four years

12. CURRICULUM AREAS & ASSESSMENTS -
MATHEMATICS
• A majority of children have a sense of fear & failure of Math's: they tend to
give up early.
• Textbooks are replete with problems, exercises and methods of evaluation
which are repetitive and mechanical
 Focus on child’s ability to think and reason
 Visualize and handle abstractions
 Formulate and solve problems

13. CURRICULUM AREAS & ASSESSMENTS -
SCIENCE
Science should nurture curiosity & creativity
particularly in relationship to environment
Science teaching should be placed in the context
of children’s environment to help them to
examine and analyze their everyday
experiences
Awareness of environmental concerns by
involving outdoor project work. Environment
education to be made part of every subject

14. CURRICULUM AREAS & ASSESSMENTS –
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Equip children to think critically on social issues
Recognize disciplinary markers so that content is not
eroded, but also emphasizes integration of themes.
Recommends paradigm shift to study social sciences
from the perspective of marginalized groups
Gender justice and sensitivity to the issues of tribal and
socially deprived groups, and minority sensibilities
must inform all sectors of social sciences.
Significance of history – conception of past and civic
identity

15. NCF 2005 – OTHER AREAS
Art Education:
 Covers four major spheres of music, dance, visual arts and theatre.
 Focus on interactive approaches, not instruction – because goal is to promote
aesthetic awareness and enable children to express themselves in different
forms
Health & Physical Education:
 Success in school depends on nutrition and well planned physical activities

16. NCF 2005 – OTHER AREAS (CONTD.)
Education for Peace:
 As a precondition for national development in view of
growing tendency towards intolerance and violence.
Habitat and Learning:
 Work should be infused in all subjects from primary stage
upwards
 Agencies offering work opportunities outside the school
should be formally recognized.

17. NCF 2005 – SYSTEMATIC REFORMS
Covers need for academic planning for
monitoring quality
Reaffirms faith in local self government
Teacher education should focus on developing
professional identity of the teacher
Examination reforms to reduce the
psychological stress, particularly on
children in Class X and XII

18. Teacher-centric - >
Teacher direction and - >
decisions
Teacher guidance and - >
monitoring
Learning passive - >
reception
Learning within four - > walls
Knowledge as “given” - > and
fixed
Learner-centric
Learner autonomy
Facilitates supports and
encourages learning
Active participation in
learning
Learning in wider social
context
Knowledge evolves is
created
TEACHER EDUCATION FOR CURRICULUM RENEWAL
(MAJOR SHIFTS)

19. NCF 2005 – WAY FORWARD
Development of syllabi and textbooks based on following
considerations:
 Appropriateness of topics and themes for relevant stages of
children’s development
 Continuity from one level to the next
 Pervasive resonance of the values enshrined in the Constitution
of India in organization of knowledge in all subjects
 Inter-disciplinary and thematic linkages between topics listed for
different school subjects, which fall under discrete disciplinary
areas

20. WAY FORWARD (CONTD.)
 Linkages between school knowledge in different subjects and
children’s everyday experiences
 Infusion of environment related knowledge and concern in all
subjects and at all levels
 Sensitivity to gender, caste and class parity, peace, health and
needs of children with disabilities
 Integration of work related attitudes and values in every subject
and at all levels
 Need to nurture aesthetic sensibility and values

21. THANK YOU