In a major announcement, the Union Ministry of Education on September 21 constituted the National Steering Committee for the development of National Curriculum Frameworks (NCF) for school education in the country. It will be after 16 years that India has begun the process of developing a new NCF that will be fourth such NCF in history of independent India and replace NCF 2005 prepared by NCERT under Prof Yash Pal.
The National Steering Committee announced is headed by Dr K Kasturirangan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who incidentally was also the chairman drafting committee on National Education Policy 2020. It will have a tenure of three year to complete its work. According to an official statement the Committee will develop four National Curriculum Frameworks- i.e., the National Curriculum Framework for School Education, National Curriculum for Early Childhood Care and Education, National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education and National Curriculum Framework for Adult Education. The new NCFs will be in accordance with reforms outlined in the NEP.
Other members of the Committee are:
- Mahesh Chandra Pant, Chancellor of NIEPA (National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration).
- Govind Prasad Sharma, Chairman of the National Book Trust.
- Najma Akhtar, Vice-Chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia University. She is the first woman to hold the post.
- T V Kattimani, First Vice-Chancellor of Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh (CTUAP) and has been awarded Karnataka Rajyotsava Award-second highest civilian award in Karnataka for his remarkable contribution to higher education.
- Michel Danino, Indian author of French origin. He is a guest professor at IIT Gandhinagar. In 2017, the Government of India conferred Padma Shri for his contribution towards Literature & Education.
- Milind Kamble, Indian entrepreneur andrecipient of Padma Shri in 2013. He is Chairperson of IIM, Jammu.
- Jagbir Singh, Former Professor and HoD, Department of Punjabi, University of Delhi, is appointed as the new Chancellor of the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda.
- Manjul Bhargava, an American mathematician of Indian origin. He is recipient of Fields Medal in 2014.
- M K Sridhar, a trainer and a Social Activist for Social and National causes and published thirty papers and completed eleven research projects. He was conferred with Karnataka Rajyothsava Award by the Government of Karnataka and the General President Gold Medal by the Indian Science Congress Association. Recently, he served as a member of a Committee for draft National Education Policy under the chairmanship of Dr K Kasturirangan and Chairman of Expert Committee on Technology-enabled learning of GoK.
- Dhir Jhingran, Founder Director of Language and Learning Foundation (LLF), a non-profit focused on improving foundational learning of children in government primary schools. Earlier, as an IAS officer, Dhir has served as Principal Secretary of Education with the Government of Assam, as Director in the Ministry of Human Resource Development in policy-making roles and as Project Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
- Shankar Maruwada, Co-founder and CEO at EkStep Foundation and he is an entrepreneur and marketing professional with a wide range of experience working on large scale projects such as the AADHAAR, India’s National Identification Programme, where he was the Head of Demand Generation and Marketing.
Director NCERT will assist the Commitee to complete its module. The terms of reference for the panel may be expanded as per the requirement.
The Committee will discuss different aspects of School Education, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), Teacher Education and Adult Education keeping in focus all the recommendations of NEP 2020 related to these four areas for proposing curriculum reforms. It will discuss the position papers finalised by the National Focus Groups on different aspects of all the above four areas.
The Committee will draw inputs from State Curriculum Frameworks received on the Tech Platform for the National Curriculum Frameworks. Also, all the National Curriculum Frameworks would also reflect upon the implications of situations such as COVID-19 Pandemic on respective areas for future.
While convening its meetings, committee may invite subject experts, scholars, educationists, etc. as and when required and deliberate and decide upon the course of actions with the objective to meet the timelines of the strategy for the development of National Curriculum Frameworks.
The Committee will finalise National Curriculum Frameworks after incorporating suggestions received from various stakeholders, i.e., states/UTs and also in the meetings of Executive Committee (EC) and General Body (GB) of the NCERT and Central Advisory Board on Education(CABE).
