These envisage positively transforming school education system of India as envisioned through positive changes in the curriculum and pedagogy

The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisions quality education that will meet the needs of the industry and enhance employment, so it envisions minimising the tight compartmentation and rigid curricula. The NEP emphasises the need for vocational education through the integration and mainstreaming of vocational education with general education. So, the Government of India constituted a high-level committee to formulate a unified credit accumulation and transfer framework for both vocational and general education from the bottom to the top level of educational systems and developed the National Credit Framework. This framework is designed to establish equivalence and mobility between various modes of education for lifelong learning.
Recognition of prior learning, multiple entry and exit, and continuous professional development are encouraged in the system. The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship constituted NCF to integrate credits of learning on the axis i.e. academics, vocational skills and experiential. A curriculum framework must support exactly that it is a framework to help develop all the diverse curricula in the country while enabling consonance and harmony across the country and providing a basis for quality and equity.
The NCF 2023 and educational value system envisages helping in positively transforming the school education system of India as envisioned through corresponding positive changes in the curriculum and pedagogy. The NCF relies on a unified approach across the education and the skilling frameworks enabling the education and skilling ecosystem to implement a comprehensive credit-based framework. It provides for credits of all learning components and their accumulation, storage, transfer and redemption of credits, assessment of them under the parameters of NEP.
The NEP underscores the need for multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary study from the secondary education stage. It lays particular emphasis on empowering students through flexibility in course choices so that learners can choose their learning trajectories and programmes and thereby choose their career paths in life according to their interests and talents. The national curriculum framework draft designed curriculum by integrating arts, humanities, sciences and vocational streams. It considers learning as a process that takes into account multidimensions of cognitive, emotional, social and physical learning in a holistic way. The main objective is to establish equivalence between general and vocational education. The equivalence in general determines the level of education and number of years of study completed along with the upward progression in accordance with candidates’ field of study. By equivalence, it is understood that the evaluation of the curriculum is followed by the holding of the educational awards and its compatibility with the national education system.
In order to establish such equivalence, it is important that each programme within general education, vocational education and skills has measurable criteria including the outcomes and competencies, through a proper assessment which is possible only through a robust credit framework, which should enable assignment of measurable criteria for both general and vocational education with respect to duration and achievement of requisite competencies. A society with individuals who are healthy, and knowledgeable needs human capital with capacities, values and dispositions to participate effectively and meaningfully in the development of a democracy, economy and culture in order to shape a vibrant pluralistic and democratic knowledge society. The main purpose of schools as formal educational institutions is the achievement of valuable knowledge capacities, values and dispositions by their students. What is desirable is guided by the aims of school education as articulated by NCF. The knowledge capacities and values that are proposed by NCF will lead us to the achievement of the aims of education.
The NEP 2020 derives its values from traditional sources, broad humanistic values and the Indian constitution. The schools are the nurseries of good value systems and vital dispositions. NCF aims to inculcate values among students like the values of Swachta, Satya, Karma, Nishkam, tolerance, honesty hard work, respect for elders, respect for all people and their inherent capabilities regardless of background, respect for the environment, etc. These will be inculcated in students through the school system. These values are virtues that students need to develop for the benefit of both individuality and society. It is the bedrock for the foundation of democratic values.
The NCF (National Curriculum Framework) includes the democratic outlook and commitment to liberty and freedom, equality, justice, and fairness; embracing diversity, plurality, and inclusion; humanness and fraternal spirit; social responsibility and spirit of service; commitment to rational and public dialogue, peace, social action through constitutional means. Unity and integrity of the nation are core values on which the curriculum is designed. These are the values that guarantee reliable knowledge. Understanding current scientific theories and concepts inculcates scientific temper and encourages evidence-based thinking throughout the curriculum for experiential and skill-based knowledge and its applicability.
Positive work ethics is the hallmark of the workforce which can be churned out through the well-designed curriculum execution. The NCF has given paramount importance to school culture which is considered a must for achieving the aims of education. It should not be confined to classrooms but the socialisation of the students into the broad culture and ethos of the school. The values and dispositions are specifically learnt by immersion into the school ethos and culture that deliberately and explicitly promotes desirable values.
The National Credit Framework enables the establishment of eligibility criteria for various qualifications being implemented in both vocational and non-vocational education in terms of accumulated credit points at certain levels. These credit points can be used to determine eligibility for admission in various programmes at multiple levels, subjected to fulfilment of the broad principles laid down under the NCF. This mobility will be an outcome of the equivalence that is established between general education and vocational education, based on skills on the criteria laid by the NCF without the need for further certification of equivalence of academic qualification of students. This NCF will enable provisions for lifelong learning through multiple entry and exit options. The measure dimensions of the National Credit Framework are the credit earned by virtue of completed academic education, credit earned by virtue of undergoing vocational education, training/skill programme, credit points earned by virtue of relevant experiential learning including relevant experience and professional levels acquired. The NCF shall be an inclusive umbrella framework to integrate the credits earned through school to all other fields and levels.
The writer is a Ph.D. Education and NET/JRF. He can be reached at [email protected]

Dr Imtiyaz Rasool Ganai