IT has taken a year for the UPA government to produce its first promised policy document in education, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF). The build up and the processes that have gone into preparing the NCF 2005 would appear to be much more academically sound and wide-ranging compared to the ham-handed manner in preparing the previous version, the NCF 2000 by the NDA government. The NDA effort, that did not have the approval of the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) since it wasn’t even constituted by the then government, had elicited widespread criticism. The criticism was, however, most severe regarding the attempt of the NCF 2000 to redefine the approach to curriculum design in a manner seen by many as at variance with the values enshrined in the Constitution. The subsequent attempt to rewrite history books was only one of the questionable actions that followed the NCF 2000.

NCF 2005 squarely locates itself within the rubric of constitutional values, namely democracy, debate, secularism, social justice, equity, scientific temper and so on. To that extent it seems to have corrected the distortions that had appeared via NCF 2000, thereby preparing the ground for the UPA government to claim that it has fulfilled the promise of ‘detoxification’ in a substantial manner. However, the major effort of the four volume NCF 2005 has been to deal with the question of school education from as many as twenty-one viewpoints, being the number of focus groups that have contributed to the effort. The first volume that delineates the framework is distilled from the twenty-one focus group reports that constitute the other three volumes, the total running into about a thousand pages! These reports cover subjects ranging from mathematics, social sciences and sciences, language, work, art and music and much more. A number of eminent people from various professions, from all over the country, were involved in the process, lending a degree of credibility and respectability to the effort.

Anyone who has practised critical pedagogy stressing on understanding and problem solving, and an approach that stresses on construction of knowledge rather than its mere transmission as I have, or believes in it, cannot but endorse the NCF 2005. But those who did not participate in preparing the document, as I didn’t, need to look at it much more objectively while doing so, since those who did would naturally be more inclined to explain, defend and promote it.

In that context the immediate question that arises is – What is the purpose of the document? One could ascribe two purposes to it – one to help initiate a national debate for a systemic change in the current school methodology and content, and the second to help institutions charged with the academic responsibility for school education – the SCERT’s, DIET’s and so on – to change their way of working and approach to the content and process of education. To me it is doubtful whether either of these purposes will be substantially served by the draft document. And that has essentially to do with the manner in which it has been written.

The NCF reads as an exhaustive compilation of assertions and opinions for a particular approach to education. Much as one might agree with these assertions, the document does not seek to engage in a debate with those who have differing views, since it mostly asserts rather than argues. One is not talking of ideological differences here, but pedagogical debates such as the question of using the mother tongue as a medium of instruction and the place of English in the primary stage; whether to have examinations or not; softening the borders of tightly defined subject areas at the elementary stage; legitimising local knowledge in order to connect the school to the life of the child, hence decentralising the teaching-learning process; linking education to the knowledge base and political economy of labour, in particular that of the informal sector; using conflict situations in the child’s experience as a pedagogy of learning; celebrating and negotiating plurality and so on.

These are questions that confuse and exercise the minds of a majority of parents, teachers and even intellectuals. From this document they are likely get a particular viewpoint, that is if they can wade through it. But I wonder if it will engage with their apprehensions or fears about their children’s education. At best they can be reassured that these are the opinions of eminent men and women, coming from the premier school education institution, the NCERT. Hence, it has the requisite authority, and one may believe in it even without comprehension. It must be right – just as a medical doctor or a scientist is supposed to be for a common person. But that actually flies in the face of what the document is asserting – that education and understanding should not be based on the authority of the teacher, book or the expert, but must be transacted in a manner that takes into account the recipient’s questions, experiences and understandings. The promotion of the document also seems to violate what it tries to preach. At the CABE meeting where it was presented by the Director, NCERT on 7 June, great pains were taken to highlight the eminence of the people behind it. This might have been tactical, to list the academicians in order to deflect from the political polarity of the sangh parivar and the other political parties. But that didn’t prevent the BJP ministers from staging the customary walkout and worse, did not prevent the condemnable vandalism of Vigyan Bhawan by the ABVP lumpens.

To be true to what the document tries to preach and prescribe, the emphasis would have to be more on the quality of arguments rather than on the eminence of the people who made the assertions. However, as the draft stands now, as a document for debate till it finally comes back for acceptance to the CABE in August, one hopes its assertions would have been transformed to arguments supported by evidence and research in its main body that are comprehensible to the ordinary masses, parents, teachers and educationists within SCERTs and DIETs. That is important if different books, methodologies, processes and examinations are to be put into place for every child in India, rather than for a few that are directly covered by the NCERT and CBSE. Otherwise, like the Kothari Commission Report and many such excellent previous documents, the only purpose it may end up serving is to become a question for B.Ed and M.Ed students who will be asked to write a ‘short note’ or the ‘salient features’ of the NCF 2005! And that will be the ultimate insult to what it preaches.

Vinod Raina