Union Education Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan released the ‘Mandate Document: Guidelines for the Development of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF)’ at an event held at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

The development of the NCF is being guided by the National Steering Committee (NSC), chaired by K Kasturirangan, supported by the Mandate Group, along with the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT). The NCF includes the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE), the National Curriculum Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education (NCFECCE), the National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE), and the National Curriculum Framework for Adult Education (NCFAE).

Terming the preparation of National Curriculum Framework a scientific and continuous process and NCF a society’s document, Minister Pradhan suggested creating an app-based process to enable suggestions for the NCF from every citizen of our country.

The Mandate Document is the bridge between the NEP 2020 and the NCF. Some of the important characteristics of NCF includes outlining the process of the development and the characteristics of the NCF and providing clear and specific anchors for the NCF to the vision, principles, and approach of NEP 2020.

The document also sets the mechanisms for the development of a coherent and comprehensive NCF, fully leveraging the widespread consultations already under way. Along with the process designed ensuring the seamless integration imagined – vertically (across stages) and horizontally (across subjects in the same stage) in the NEP 2020 – to ensure holistic, integrated, and multi-disciplinary education while enabling critical linkage between the curriculum of schools with the curriculum of teacher.

In addition to consultations with multiple stakeholders which includes teachers, school principals, anganwadi teachers, teacher educators, parents, community members, students, non-literates, neo literates, and education experts, district-level consultations, more than 700 state-level expert Groups in States and Union Territories across subjects and cross cutting themes, 25 National-level expert groups including international experts; NCF will also fully account for other initiatives like NIPUN Bharat, the national mission for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by the Ministry of Education, which are being implemented with the required urgency even as the NCF is being developed.

The inputs being gathered are being analyzed rigorously, to draw the best, to be incorporated in the development of the NCFs by the Steering Committee, along with the Mandate Group, and the NCERT.

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