ASSIGNMENT
TOPIC: NCF AND KCF
SUBMITTED BY
SHYNI.
L
PHYSICAL
SCIENCE
REG.
NO- 13304016
INTRODUCTION
A curriculum framework
is an organized plan or set of standards or learning outcomes that defines the content to be learned in terms of clear, definable
standards of what the student should know and be able to do.
A Curriculum Framework is
part of an outcome-based education or standards based education reform design. The framework is
the first step, defining clear, high standards which will be achieved by all
students. The curriculum is then aligned to the standards, and students are
assessed against the standards. As compared with traditional education which is concerned only about delivering content, a
standards based education reform system promises that all
will succeed if all are held to high expectations. When the standards are
reached, there will be no achievement gap where some groups are
allowed to score lower than others, or the disabled are offered different
opportunities than others. All will meet world class standards and be qualified
for good colleges and trained for good jobs which pay good wages. In a traditional education system, the curriculum was defined by those who
created textbooks rather than government bodies which assembled groups of
stakeholders to create standards based on consensus of what students should
know and be able to do.
In some states, curriculum
frameworks have been adopted based on traditional academic standards rather
than outcome-based constructivist standards, but many frameworks were
originally or still based on student-centered learning and constructivism such
as reform mathematics, whole
language
and Inquiry-based Science which have been controversial in some states and
communities. High school graduation examinations tie awarding of diplomas to
demonstration of meeting the standards set out in the frameworks.
CONTENT
National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) is one
of four National Curriculum Frameworks published in 1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005
by the National Council of Educational Research and Training NCERT in India. The document provides the framework for making syllabii, textbooks
and teaching practices within the school education programmes in India.
The NCF 2005 document draws its policy basis from earlier
government reports on education as Learning Without Burden and National Policy
of Education 1986-1992 and focus group discussion. After wide ranging
deliberations 21 National Focus Group Position Papers have been developed under
the agies of NCF-2005. The state of art position papers provided inputs for
formulation of NCF-2005.
The document and its offshoot textbooks have come under different
forms of reviews in the press. Its draft document came under the criticism from
the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). In February 2008 the director
Krishna Kumar in an interview also discussed the challenges that are faced by
the document.
The approach and recommendations of NCF-2005 are for the
entire educational system. A number of its recommendations, for example, focus
on rural schools. The syllabus and textbooks based on it are being used by all
the CBSE schools, but NCF-based material is also being used in many
State schools.
NCF
2005 has been translated into 22 languages and has influenced the syllabii in
17 States. The NCERT gave a grant of Rs.10 lakh to each State to promote NCF in
the language of the State and to compare its current syllabus with the syllabus
proposed, so that a plan for future reforms could 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].
Main Features of the NCF 2005
The
document is divided into 5 areas:
- Perspective
- Learning and Knowledge
- Curriculum Areas, School Stages
and Assessment
- School and Classroom
Environment
- Systemic Reforms
- Mother tongue as a medium of
instructions.
- free development
- availability of resources
NCERT’s
Science Curriculum
Contemporary
pedagogic concerns
We have noted above
that the current NCERT document takes note of the problems pointed out
regarding the old curriculum and pedagogy, and often takes a liberal stance
which may be at variance with the main ideological thrust of the document. This
is evident in the section on curriculum load and perception of the child as a
constructor of knowledge.
‘The heavy load
of curriculum is not merely physical, but also one of non comprehension
resulting from the lack of understanding of some basic concepts. This has been
causing tremendous amount of stress and strain among students… The issue of
curriculum load... cannot be wished away merely by downsizing the volume of the
textbooks… One way to partly resolve the issue would be to take out the
obsolete and redundant content… The load can also be reduced by removing the
mismatch between the developmental capacities of children on the one hand and
the curricular expectations and teaching and learning methods on the other.
Undue emphasis on homework, the memorisation of a large number of facts, as
also overlapping concepts and topics in the syllabi will have to be removed.
There also has to be a shift from the ‘content’ to the ‘processes’ of learning.
Teaching shall have to be geared to making students ‘learn how to learn’… The
load can be taken off by innovating evaluation practices which test the
abilities like comprehension, application and analysis ...
‘The
acquisition of knowledge through active involvement with content, and not
imitation of or memorisation of the material, is at the root of the
construction of knowledge. In the constructivist setting, the learners have
autonomy for their own learning, opportunities for peer collaboration and
support, occasions for the learner generated problems that drive the
curriculum, time for self observation and evaluation and outlets for
reflection. Autonomy encourages learners to construct their own knowledge ... through
hands on experiences rather than follow prescribed information. This
perspective recognises the teacher as primarily a facilitator of learning...’
(p. 26)
‘The multiple intelligence approach offers the learners
many opportunities to explore significant concepts and topics and to think
about them on their own in many ways and to have many ways to make sense of
what they find. The use of multiple intelligence in the curriculum provides for
a variety of experiences that become the entry points into the lesson content
and reach the learners in ways they can understand…’ (p. 28)
To a large measure the 1988 document was
responsible for effectively increasing the curriculum load on children. This
was both in terms of the volume of the syllabus at each stage and also the
weight of information which could not be conveyed in any other manner except
rote learning. Even though the question of increasing load had come up
repeatedly by 1988, the document dismissed it. ‘The NCERT undertook a detailed
study of the problem of curriculum load… The report indicated that the
curriculum load was not so much of a problem of curriculum development as that
of perception and management, accentuated by resource constraints.’ (NCERT
1988, p. 3) This gave licence to increasing the load even further. The NCERT of
the 1980s and 1990s had veered towards a more information based curriculum
where balanced presentation of information of all aspects was seen as being an
indicator of political correctness. This forced a shift from skill development
to information transmission and rote learning. Even the MLLs (minimum levels of
learning) initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in the 1990s
as a new thrust supposedly based on competencies, was largely expressed in terms
of ability to recall packets of information.
The discussion on globalisation is again
turned into an occasion for launching off into values that need to be
inculcated in our children. While it is emphasised that the three Rs would
continue to be the basic goals of education the need for certain attitudes and
skills necessary for self-learning are to be inculcated. ‘develop capacity
among students to acquire relevant knowledge and inculcate and interpret new
values that will guarantee them the ability to remain up to date with the
evolution of their environment...’ (p. 15)
Thus on the one hand there is a welcome
concern to inculcate knowledge acquisition and processing skills (in place of
imparting knowledge) there is at the same time a desire to maintain the
inherited distinctions and identities which are threatened with erosion by
globalisation. ‘the challenges created by globalisation for the educational
processes would mean rethinking about the selection and delivery of educational
content, integrating new sources of information, developing competence along
with knowledge, adapting curricula to the needs of the different socio-cultural
groups, and maintaining the national and social cohesion of the country.’
(ibid)
It is interesting that some of the fundamental
premises of modern pedagogy are being rediscovered in the name of responding to
the challenges of globalization and IT revolution. We are told in the latter
context:
‘The teachers will become facilitators and
libraries will be put to more and more use… This would result in a shift from
the traditional learning atmosphere to climate of values that encourages
exploration, problem solving and decision making and from prescriptive class
room teaching to participatory decentralized interactive group learning. the
traditional instructional methodology would give place to strategies that unify
knowledge, the mastery of fixed body of knowledge to understanding of a web of
interrelations between parts of a whole, the linear sequential reasoning to
search for patterns and connections and the collection of information to the
processing.’ (p. 16)
The reader may notice that this view of
education is not very consistent with the emphasis on authority and wisdom of
the ancestors and community and sectarian leaders discussed above. We may
expect a tense relation between the two perspectives and it would be
interesting to know how it is resolved by the NCERT. We will return to this
rather important theme a little later.
The pedagogic perspective outlined in the
2000 document is thus a welcome shift. However a word of caution may be in
order here. What should replace the information load in the curriculum? The
document seems to emphasise a rather unstructured construction of knowledge by
children. This would open the flood gates for all kinds of dubious content to
be ‘constructed’. It should be realised that there is a need to go deeply into
the substance of the disciplines concerned and define what needs to be taught
in terms of the basic perspectives and methodologies of the disciplines. This
will help us keep clear of both the culture of loading children with
information packages and the anarchy of letting child construct their own
knowledge and skill building without any content.
SCERT’s
SCIENCE CURRICULUM
Science
Education
The department of Science plays a
key role to popularize Science in the State by conducting seminars, science
exhibitions at various levels.
The department is meant for extending resource support to different
institutions like IASEs / CTEs / DIETs and Schools. The department has got
pivotal role in propagating scientific values, scientific attitudes and
scientific temper particularly among the teachers and students and the
community at large.
The department coordinates with other agencies working in the field of science
and technology. As a part of the SCERT, the department of science acts as main
academic advisory body in science through its functions like revision of
syllabus, framing of curriculum and evaluation.
Aims
and objectives:
* To organise in-service training for Physical Science
teachers to enrich the subject.
* To organize trainings for Physical Science
teachers in doing lab experiments.
* To provide ideas and information to keep the
teachers abreast of the latest developments in the field of science.
* To undertake studies, investigations and
surveys relating to science matters on the appraisal of education
programmes.
* To undertake publication of modules,
enrichment material, lab manual and book of projects etc.
* TTo undertake evaluation and research study
and to find out the effectiveness of education programme in the
state.
Functions
of the science department:
Training
programme for Secondary School teachers.
* To provide teachers of Secondary Schools with the latest
and advanced information in the content and methodology of
Science.
* To equip the teachers with skills involved in
conducting experiments / activities.
* To develop teacher handbook and other teacher
learning modules like manual of experiments, like etc.
Organization
of District, State, South India Science Fairs
* To provide a platform to exhibit innovative projects for
high school children.
* To promote scientific temper inquiring
attitudes among student community.
* To exchange cultural relations and to develop
brotherhood among National Level Educational Institutions and
personnel.
Organization
of District, State Science Seminars
* To inculcate in the minds of young students a spirit of
scientific enquiry and analytical thinking.
* To a platform to the budding scientists for
exchanging ideas.
* To nature a feeling national integration among
young talents from every corner of Andhra Pradesh.
* To develop communicative skills among the
students.
REFERENCE
MODERN TRENDS IN SCIENCE EDUCATION- DR. T.T.
JOSEPH
