THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Political differences between the state and the central governments over the centre’s draft National Education Policy (NEP) Report 2019 are likely to lead to a delay in revising the school curriculum in the state.Though Education Minister C Raveendranath proposed a comprehensive revision of the school curriculum, the government cannot do it until the final NEP report is published. The state may have to follow the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) which will be reviewed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) from the second week of November.
NCF provides a framework for school syllabuses and preparing textbooks while providing guidelines on teaching practices. The NCFs were released in 1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005. In the last NCF, the focus turned from teachers to students to ensure hassle-free learning. With the union government setting the deadline of completing the new NCF for December 2020, it will also be a hurdle for the state to revise the curriculum before this time period.
Sources with the Education Department said the state has dissent over the major recommendations in the NEP, which are ‘politically inclined’. “Even if the final NEP report is published, the union government will force the states to implement it to protect its political interests and it will hugely reflect on the curriculum too. Kerala is one of the states in the country which opposes many suggestions of draft NEP. However, we will decide on the curriculum revision once the final draft is out,” a senior officer told TNIE.
The state government had also written to the centre strongly rejecting the policy stating that it was against secularism and socialism. The withdrawal of government from investing in education will lead to privatisation in the education sector, the state told the centre. The proposal on revising the school curriculum was taken in a school curriculum steering committee meeting held recently. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) was entrusted with implementing it. SCERT was earlier entrusted with overviewing textbooks and create an entrepreneur-friendly environment in classrooms as part of curriculum revision.
According to SCERT director J Prasad, the decision on curriculum revision will take place once the final NEP is released. “We can revise the curriculum only after seeing the final NEP which is to be released soon,” Prasad said.
The Centre has initiated the process of formulating NEP to meet the changing dynamics of the requirements of the population with regard to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make the country a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry. Meanwhile, A Shahjahan, general education secretary, told TNIE that curriculum revision would be more of a political decision than a policy one. “In the present scenario, we need to wait till NEP is published,” he said.
Centre’s much-touted policy
The Centre has initiated the process of formulating NEP to meet the changing dynamics of the population requirements with regard to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make the country a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in all fields