Select any one subject from high school curriculum and analyze the curricular and co- curricular activities used for the effective curriculum transaction of the subject. Examine to what extent the National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) has been adopted for its effective implementation.

 Some of these approaches to integration in curriculum have been emphatically articulated in the NCF 2005. The following three important ideas relating to learning are briefly summarized below

a) Primacy of child as an active and natural learner: It is almost universally agreed now that every child has a natural urge and ability to learn, which is most readily demonstrated by the manner she learns language almost autonomously. The idea of child-centred pedagogy means giving primary to children’s experiences, their voices, and their active participation.

In our traditional schools, children’s experiences are not generally given importance because teachers are considered to be repositories of all knowledge that is worth knowing, and children’s voices are not taken into account in the name of discipline and order turning them into passive learners. This scenario must change completely. Every child has a family and social background and learning has an inevitable social character. Every child, therefore, must be valued for what she is and what she comes with to the school. Schools should encourage active participation of children in the process of learning. To nurture their curiosity they should do things, ask questions and pursue investigations on their own. 

b) Learning as a process of construction of knowledge: In the constructivist perspective adopted by NCF 2005, learning is a process of construction of knowledge. This leads to the idea that learners construct their own knowledge actively by joining new ideas to existing ideas on the basis of materials and activities presented to them.

The structuring and restructuring of ideas are features of constructive learning. However, a social aspect is also involved in the sense that knowledge can be created in a group situation. Hence, there is scope for collaborative learning and social construction of meaning as well. A good teacher actively supports and facilitates the process of knowledge construction in which a child may be engaged.

Allowing children to ask questions, encouraging them to answer in their own words and from their own experiences and engaging them in well-chosen challenging tasks and questions will help them to develop their understanding. On the other hand, restricting them to merely answer questions and that, too, in the words written in the books or said by the teacher and expecting them just to memorize and reproduce whatever is taught are sure ways to obstruct learning with proper understanding.

c) Learning through interaction and dialogue leading to a critical pedagogy: Learning happens through continuous interactions with the environment around us, i.e. nature, things and people, both through actions and through language.  Our physical activities of moving, exploring and doing things by our own, with peers or in company of adults, and using language to read, to articulate, to ask, to listen and to interact- are the main processes through which learning takes place. While dialogue, rather than one-way transmission from the teacher’s side, will engage the child and induce her to think and reflect. 

NCF 2005 asserts that critical pedagogy gives many opportunities to reflect critically on any issues in terms of their political, social, economic and moral aspects. Critical pedagogy facilitates collective decision making through open discussion and by encouraging and recognising multiple views of learners. The National Curriculum Framework 2005 has discussed the kinds of curriculum for different stages.

According to it, for primary stage, a child should be engaged in joyful learning by giving them safe space to explore the world around. At this stage, the key objectives are to nurture the curiosity of the child about surrounding (natural environment, artefacts and people), to have hands-on activities with them for acquiring the basic cognitive and psychomotor skills through observation, classification, inference, etc.; and to develop basic language skills i.e. speaking, reading and writing. Similarly, Science and Social Science should be integrated as ‘Environmental Studies’ along with health and cleanliness as important components.

At the primary stage, there should be no pressure of formal assessment and evaluation. Moving towards the upper primary stage, the learner should be engaged in learning the principles of science through familiar experiences, hands on activities, and designing simple technological models (such as working model of a windmill to list weights).

The learners should also continue to learn more about the environment and health, including reproductive and sexual health, through activities and surveys. Group activities, discussions with peers and teachers, surveys, organisation of data and their display through exhibitions, etc. in schools and the neighbourhood should be promoted as important components of pedagogy at this stage. There should be continuous as well as periodic assessment in the form of unit tests, termend tests.  At the secondary stage, there should be focus on learning Science as a composite discipline, in working with hands and tools to design more advanced technological models than the previous stage.

The activities and analyses of issues concerning the environment and health, including reproductive and sexual health should also be taken as central content. The curriculum at this stage should promote systematic experimentation as a tool to discover and verify various theories, principles and concepts, and working on locally significant issues involving science and technology. At the higher secondary stage, the framework advocates for introduction of science through its separate disciplines such as Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, etc. with emphasis on experiments/technology and problem solving.

The current two streams, academic and vocational, being pursued as per NPE-1986, may require a fresh look in the present scenario of National Education Policy-2020. As the new policy is recommending that the learners may freely choose various subjects of their interest at secondary level without any restriction of streams. The issue related to the rationalization of curriculum load is also very significant for this stage so that learners will have more time to engage with diverse activities. During this stage, the core topics should be framed taking recent advances into account.

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