Bhubaneswar: In accordance with the new Education policy of the Central government, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has proposed changes in the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) curriculum.
This was informed by NCERT director Hrushikesh Senapati at a press briefing here on Monday.
All CBSE books would be changed and published according to the changes in curriculum, he said.
“NCERT has already prepared its report on the new Education policy and submitted it to the Drafting Committee for its approval,” he added.
To a question on what aspects the NCERT has given emphasis in the new Education policy of the Centre which would be announced shortly, Senapati said the Council has 33 themes in the new Education policy of which 20 themes are for higher education and 13 are for school education.
“Of the 13 themes for school education, NCERT has deliberated on 11 themes. After completing 52 district level deliberations and 10 regional level deliberations, we have conducted national level deliberations and submitted our recommendations to the Drafting Committee. The recommendations we have given to the Drafting Committee are on quality improvement in elementary education, secondary education for all, vocational education, teachers' education, teacher training, teacher recruitment, ICT in education and inclusive education,” he informed.
Talking about changes the NCERT has decided to bring in the CBSE syllabus, Senapati, the first Odia to occupry the post of Director, NCERT said it all depends on the forthcoming National Education Policy.
“After the Centre announces the new policy, we will prepare national curriculum framework after which we will change the syllabus”, he added.
Asked whether the NCERT has any plans to frame the curriculum at the primary and secondary level to enable the students to compete in the all India Engineering and Medical tests, Senapati said stress has not given on the character building of the students, which is a bare necessity for the society, in the present syllabus.
“Taking this into consideration, we will take steps in future to ensure proper character formation of the students. Besides, we will also give priority to the development of their professional expertise as well as latent talent,” he observed.
Asked about the proactive steps taken by the NCERT for development in education, he said qualitative development in education is the prime objective of the Council.
“We have research, development, training and extension activities as our mandate. Of all the ongoing programmes taken up by the Council, we have given at least 30 percent weightage on research activities. Apart from this, we have constituted a committee for improvement in training programmes. Presently, a committee has been formed to study in-service training programmes. The committee, after observing the training mode, will give suggestions on the duration and modalities of the training, whether the training would be held continuously or it would be in a split mode. After the committee gives its suggestion, we will implement them,” Senapati said.
Talking about the development activity of the Council, he said the main focus is to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and develop different exemplar materials.
“We have recently launched e-Pathshala in which we have incorporated all NCERT publications. We will develop exemplar materials integrating ICT on pedagogy and later launch them in e-Pathshala which will be beneficial to the students, teachers and teacher educators,” the NCERT Director informed.