Guiding Principle:
We need to plan and pay attention to systemic matters
that will enable us to implement many of the good
ideas that have already been articulated in the past.
Paramount among these are :
• connecting knowledge to life outside the school,
• ensuring that learning is shifted away from rote
methods,
• enriching the curriculum to provide for overall
development of children rather than remain textbook centric,
• making examinations more flexible and integrated
into classroom life and,
• nurturing an over-riding identity informed by
caring concerns within the democratic polity of
the country.
In the present context, there are new
developments and concerns to which our curriculum
must respond. The foremost among these is the
importance of including and retaining all children in
school through a programme that reaffirms the value
of each child and enables all children to experience
dignity and the confidence to learn. Curriculum design
must reflect the commitment to Universal Elementary
Education (UEE), not only in representing cultural
diversity, but also by ensuring that children from
different social and economic backgrounds with
variations in physical, psychological and intellectual
characteristics are able to learn and achieve success in
school. In this context, disadvantages in education
arising from inequalities of gender, caste, language,
culture, religion or disabilities need to be addressed
directly, not only through policies and schemes but
also through the design and selection of learning tasks
and pedagogic practices, right from the period of early
childhood.
UEE makes us aware of the need to broaden
the scope of the curriculum to include the rich
inheritance of different traditions of knowledge, work
and crafts. Some of these traditions today face a serious
threat from market forces and the commodification
of knowledge in the context of the globalisation of
the economy. The development of self-esteem and
ethics, and the need to cultivate children’s creativity, must
receive primacy. In the context of a fast-changing world
and a competitive global context, it is imperative that
we respect children’s native wisdom and imagination.
Decentralisation and emphasis on the role of
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) are to be viewed as
major steps towards systemic reforms. PRIs offer an
opportunity to make the system less bureaucratic,teachers more accountable, and the schools more
autonomous and responsive to the needs of children.
These steps should also stimulate questions and
entanglements with local physical conditions, life and
environment. Children acquire varied skills naturally
while growing up in their environment. They also
observe life and the world around them. When
imported into classrooms, their questions and queries
can enrich the curriculum and make it more creative.
Such reforms will also facilitate the practice of the
widely acknowledged curricular principles of moving
from "known to the unknown", from "concrete to
abstract", and from "local to global". For this purpose,
the concept of critical pedagogy has to be practised in
all dimensions of school education, including teacher
education. It is here that, for instance, productive work
can become an effective pedagogic medium for (a)
connecting classroom knowledge to the life experiences
of children; (b) allowing children from marginalised
sections of society, having knowledge and skills related
to work, to gain a definite edge and respect among
their peers from privileged sections; and (c) facilitating
a growing appreciation of cumulative human
experience, knowledge and theories by building
rationally upon the contextual experiences.
Making children sensitive to the environment and
the need for its protection is another important curricular
concern. The emergence of new technological choices
and living styles witnessed during the last century has
led to environmental degradation and vast imbalances
between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. It has
become imperative now more than ever before to
nurture and preserve the environment. Education can
provide the necessary perspective on how human life
can be reconciled with the crisis of the environment so
that survival, growth and development remain
possible. The National Policy on Education, 1986
emphasised the need to create awareness of
environmental concerns by integrating it in the
educational process at all stages of education and for
all sections of society.
Living in harmony within oneself and with one’s
natural and social environment is a basic human need.
Sound development of an individual’s personality can
take place only in an ethos marked by peace. A disturbed
natural and psycho-social environment often leads to
stress in human relations, triggering intolerance and
conflict. We live in an age of unprecedented violence—
local, national, regional and global. Education often
plays a passive, or even insidious role, allowing young
minds to be indoctrinated into a culture of intolerance,
which denies the fundamental importance of human
sentiments and the noble truths discovered by different
civilisations. Building a culture of peace is an
incontestable goal of education. Education to be
meaningful should empower individuals to choose
peace as a way of life and enable them to become managers rather than passive spectators of conflict.
Peace as an integrative perspective of the school
curriculum has the potential of becoming an
enterprise for healing and revitalising the nation.
As a nation we have been able to sustain a
robust democratic polity. The vision of democracy
articulated by the Secondary Education Commission
(1952) is worth recalling:
Citizenship in a democracy involves many
intellectual, social and moral qualities…a democratic
citizen should have the understanding and the
intellectual integrity to sift truth from falsehood,
facts from propaganda and to reject the dangerous
appeal of fanaticism and prejudice … should
neither reject the old because it is old nor accept
the new because it is new, but dispassionately
examine both and courageously reject what arrests
the forces of justice and progress…..
For us to foster democracy as a way of life rather
than only a system of governance, the values enshrined
in the Constitution assume paramount significance.
• The Constitution of India guarantees equality of
status and opportunity to all citizens. Continued
exclusion of vast numbers of children from
education and the disparities caused through
private and public school systems challenge the
efforts towards achieving equality. Education
should function as an instrument of social
transformation and an egalitarian social order.
• Justice—social, economic and political—to all
citizens is integral to strengthening democracy.
• Liberty of thought and action is a fundamental
value embedded in our Constitution. Democracy
requires as well as creates a kind of citizen who
pursues her own autonomously chosen ends and
respects others’ right to do so as well.
• A citizen needs to internalise the principles of
equality, justice and liberty to promote fraternity
among all.
• India is a secular democratic state, which means
that all faiths are respected, but at the same time
the Indian state has no preference for any particular faith. The felt need, today, is to inculcate among
children a respect for all people regardless of their
religious beliefs.
India is a multicultural society made up of numerous
regional and local cultures. People’s religious beliefs, ways
of life and their understanding of social relationships
are quite distinct from one another. All the groups have
equal rights to co-exist and flourish, and the education
system needs to respond to the cultural pluralism inherent
in our society. To strengthen our cultural heritage and
national identity, the curriculum should enable the younger
generation to reinterpret and re-evaluate the past with
reference to new priorities and emerging outlooks of a
changing societal context. Understanding human
evolution should make it clear that the existence of
distinctness in our country is a tribute to the special spirit
of our country, which allowed it to flourish. The cultural
diversity of this land should continue to be treasured as
our special attribute. This should not be considered a
result of mere tolerance. Creation of a citizenry conscious
of their rights and duties, and commitment to the
principles embodied in our Constitution is a prerequisite
in this context
