NEW DELHI: The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is being built against the backdrop of a pandemic, which has impacted 100% of the children in the country, be it cognitively, mentally or emotionally (psychomotor skills), said Anita Karwal, secretary, school education, in the ministry of education on Monday.

During a meeting of 25 National Focus Groups (NFGs) and the National Steering Committee, the recently released film Kashmir Files also found mention when an NFG member said that suppressing things and misportrayal of knowledge about India should also be eliminated in the new curriculum framework.

Karwal said that the position papers have to be less philosophy, more doable, more functional and operational.

“There is one principle that we need to follow in the focus groups. We need to understand that through your position papers, we are not preparing the child for higher education. I have to say this because most of the focus group members are from the higher education background. We are preparing them for a lifelong learning. We are preparing them to become learners.”

All the 25 groups presented their status during the interaction where the members also placed their observations. Kashmir Files was also found mentioned in the meeting. During his comment, Professor K Ramasubramanian, from IIT Bombay and a member of a focus group on Knowledge of India, said that the emphasis laid on knowledge of India which was lacking in earlier NCFs will help build confidence in children. Ramasubramanian added: “… I have seen in the IITs also which has been lacking because of the lack of the foundation that was laid, that you are capable of doing things instead of looking elsewhere for solution…and this knowledge of India. I mean, today morning I saw the mail, where somebody had sent a clip of Kashmir files. So what has been done for a long time? This suppresses the facts and miss-portraying this is what has happened even concerning knowledge of India. Suppressing things and miss-portraying I think this is going to be eliminated is what I strongly feel and we will be extremely careful in formulating what is to be formulated to see that we don’t ever make any statement that is hyperbolic which will be only counterproductive.”

Stating that the schedule is sacrosanct, the secretary said that deadlines for the State Focus Groups and NFGs are April 15 and May 15, respectively, August-September 2022 is the deadline to ready the most functional parts of the NCF.

Karwal informed the members of the 25 NFGs responsible for creating the 25 position papers of the national curriculum that the world’s largest foundational literacy and numeracy study in 20 languages is starting from Tuesday to benchmark the oral reading fluency which will be helpful in preparing the framework.

This NCF has also been built on the background of the pandemic which has impacted education. “On November 12 last year, we did the National Achievement Survey for about 35 lakh children in the country in about 717 districts of the country. We will be getting the district report cards in April end and that is going to tell us where exactly our children stand and how the pandemic has impacted them. So we are building a national curriculum framework in the background of a pandemic, which has actually impacted 100% of our children whether they have had online education, not had online education, whether they’ve had exposure to Mohalla classes or not had exposure. All of them have been impacted either cognitively mentally, emotionally psychomotor skills, affective domain everything is impacted. So we are building an NCF in that background.”

The 12-member national steering committee of the NCF revision exercise is headed by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan. Speaking at the start of the meeting, Kasturirangan said that the position papers will reflect the spirit and intent of the National Education Policy currently adopted by the nation. “…emphasis on critical analytical thinking, new curricula and pedagogical structure and then ensuring the learning and numeracy, foundational learning and numeracy and then integration of the vocational education and then the things should be rooted in India. So these are the major the flavor of the type of transitions and the paradigm shift that we are in expecting from the new directions in the education,” said Kasturirangan, adding, “that is where exactly the criticality of the exercise that you’re trying to do is there is not just reading a set of curriculum for physics, one for chemistry, one for biology, and each doesn’t even look that does what others have done. That is not on in the kind of scheme that is there. You are thinking of a 15-year package of education in school, and that 15-years is suitably structured. And then there are the 25 themes that you’re talking of. So there has to be interconnection. So this is the real challenge that we need to take into account.”