National Curriculum Framework 2005
I am jotting down this note with extreme respect to the research and experiments NCERT is doing from time to time. I was going through the National Curriculum Framework 2005 as part of drafting this and I am highly delighted to see the clarity and care that have been put up there to groom the students across rural and urban backgrounds as well as to reduce undue pressure and competition on them during school days.
Creative and Critical Thinking (CCT)
The very applaudable initiative to include prime importance to design thinking aspects to schools via Creative and Critical Thinking (CCT) is yet another progressive aspect that will bring a far-reaching fundament change to us as a whole. I am very confident this will enable us to transition from solution providers to the right problem identifiers and will help our country to make an orbit shift to a developed nation.
Grading vs Screening
I also loud my sincere thanks to the very notion of classifying the grading examinations (like 10th and 12th board exams) and the screening examinations (entrance examinations) separately, and the idea of conducting screening exams by a centralized agency, multiple times a year. This not only allows pupil with different goals to excel but also will support them through multiple attempts to qualify for a generic screening process.
Need for some tuning?
I, as a parent and as a friend and relative of many parents and students of the past 10th and 12th grades, wish to humbly draw your kind attention to the NCERT board examinations of the last couple of years.
CCT patterns to regular examinations
Pupils have a general feeling that by virtue of creative and critical thinking, many times, entrance examination type of questions are being included in the board examinations. As we have a vivid spectrum of students and only a subset of them are interested in entrance examinations, this is found to be discouraging for many of them. It is also observed that many loving teachers are also echoing this concern and they are worried by the sorrow of their buds. It is being observed that, when concerns are raised, authorities grant moderation to compensate for the pattern difference to elevate some of the much-affected students by increasing their percentages.
Impact on basic studies
The children who are very serious about the overall percentage of marks may be most affected by this pattern. The award of moderation may not help them, as without that itself, they may be able to score above 80 percent of marks and the entrance patterned questions may be preventing them from scoring more than 95 percent. Such students are mostly ambitious to take up basic science, humanities, or linguistic-related studies and research, in my view. In my reading, they are the potential torchbearers and thought leaders compared to the technologists, who opt for fields like engineering, medicine, or commerce. It is a fact that many state boards are very liberal in granting marks. Hence, this question pattern may be crippling the chances of very bright students getting admission to basic streams.
Urban vs Rural Impact
In the urban areas, this trend is pushing students to enroll in entrance training centers directly, or many times schools themselves are getting working arrangements with large entrance training firms. Thus, the very efforts of NCERT to bring down undue load to students are diluted, indirectly. The specialized entrance training may not be feasible or affordable to kids from rural areas as well as from economically weaker sections and may be demotivated as some numbers of questions are getting reserved for specially trained ones.
Moderations are reactive
Moderations can be seen as a reactive measure to contain the increase in difficulty levels of examinations. But it also paves the way to dilute the quality of grading examinations, by which more students will be granted undue grades. This will have a ripple effect on the higher education sector, as a whole, due to the entry of fewer effective kids being admitted. The pressure on pupils getting admission via undue grades may be higher and may lead to a higher rate of dropouts. The overall productivity of graduates also may be affected in a bad way.
NCERT may review the patterns
NCERT may have to pay attention to the increase in entrance patterned questions in board examinations. This not only increases the urban–rural gap but also affects the overall productivity of education space, in general. This trend may be coming from the "one-exam-fits-all" mindset, referred to in the NCF 2005 document as well. My humble opinion is to completely de-link school-leaving board examinations from competitive entrance examinations, in letter and spirit as they are for different purposes.
Reference
- https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/nc-framework/nf2005-english.pdf
- Attention: Section 5.3 EXAMINATION REFORMS
- https://www.iitms.co.in/blog/national-curriculum-framework.html
- https://teachersgazebo.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/ncf-2005-presentation.ppt
