New National Curriculum Framework May Put an End to Heavy school Textbooks

Vinod Kakumanu
Aug. 2, 2021, 11:53 a.m.

The National Curriculum Framework devised in line with the National Education Policy 2020, may make the school books lighter in a phased manner. The NEP proposes to make the classroom instruction more interactive and less didactic, hence the indication that the schoolbooks and bags will get lighter.

For classes 1 to 10, the NEP proposes to curtail the weight of the school bag to just 10 percent of the bodyweight of the student carrying it, at maximum. This naturally implies that the school books will get thinner. This doesn’t mean that the content will be slashed down, it rater indicates that the textual content will be replaced by interactive content that may be audio-visual and project-based content.

Notably, the NEP has brought with it the re-formulation of content at several different levels like school education, adult and teacher education, etc. The content is being created by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT).

In all likelihood, the implementation of the NCF will begin from the 2022-23 academic year.

As proposed in the NEP, new academic and skill-development subjects are going to be added to the curriculum, these include coding, financial literacy and artificial intelligence, etc. There is a strong indication that the digital content will come in in a big way.

India is among the biggest education system in the world. India has around 1.5 million schools with 8.5 million teachers and 250 million students. It is clear that the implementation of any policy with regard to education has to be in a phased manner.

The objective behind the re-engineering of the content is to tackle the undue pressure, arrest the dropout rates in schools, and the development of 21st-century skills in students.