Act urgently to address learning loss: curriculum revision panel
The states and the Centre “must act urgently” to address the “huge learning loss” among students due to the interruptions in regular teaching and learning caused by the pandemic over the last two years, a high-powered committee set up to revise the country’s school curriculum has advised.
The committee, led by Princeton University professor Manjul Bhargava, has observed that authorities need not wait for the completion of curriculum revision exercises to start helping students make learning recoveries.
The observations are part of a “mandate document” released Friday by Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in Bengaluru. The mandate document will act as a guidebook for the experts working on revising the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for which a deadline of December 2022 has been set.
“While the NCF is under development, the country’s education system continues to have significant, urgent, and important priorities. The pandemic has driven a huge “learning loss” amongst the vast majority of our children, and the States and the Centre must act urgently and with great focus to recover this lost learning over the next 12 months.
“This mandate document recognizes and endorses the urgency of these priorities. It encourages the development of teaching-learning-materials (such as graded readers to tackle foundational learning across the languages of India), training programs, and all other relevant initiatives for the effective implementation of such priorities These need not wait or be held back for the development of the NCF, and can go on as a parallel process, informed by sound educational understanding of the reality on the ground,” the document reads.
The observations of the mandate group have come at a time the Education Ministry is gearing up to release the findings of the National Achievement Survey (NAS) which is expected to capture the extent of learning loss among children.
The mandate group has set February 28, 2023 as the deadline for the revision of syllabi based on the new NCF. And by October 30, 2023 NCERT books based on the new syllabi should be ready, they have recommended.
The “key deliverables” of the new curriculum, according to the mandate group, will be the development of foundational literacy and numeracy among students by class III, “constitutional values including gender equality”, “rootedness and pride in India”, and a “sense of service or sewa to others in need”, scientific temperament among others.
At the release of the document, Pradhan said the revised NCF will be an instrument to “decolonise our education system”.
“After 1947, we have adopted a methodology on our learning, teaching process where the method was envisioned by a set of people who are supposed to rule us. Let us decolonize our education system. This document should be the instrument of transformational change in livelihood, dignity,” Pradhan said.
Referring to the decision of Opposition-ruled states such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu to devise their own education policies, Pradhan said he does not have any objections to such a move.
“NEP is not a Cabinet document. It was drawn up by experts. They emphasised on local language in the NEP. Is the West Bengal government not intending to teach their students in the local language? I don’t think they will have any problem with that,” Pradhan said.
