ONLINE ASSIGNMENT

Briefly outline about NCF (2005), KCF (2007) and its

relevance in vocational Education.

NATIONAL CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK (NCF 2005)

KERALA CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK (KCF 2007)

Submitted To
Ameena Beevi
Lecture in Commerce
RVTC Valakom

Submitted By
Joseph Varghese
Reg No: 19014341003
R V T C Valakom

INTRODUCTION
A curriculum framework is an organised plan or set of standards or learning
outcomes that defines the content to be learned in terms of clear, definable standards of
what the student know and be able to do. It is part of an outcome based education or
standards based education reform design. The framework is the first step, defining clear,
high standards which will be achieved by all students. The curriculum is then aligned to
the standards and students are assessed against the standards. When the standards are
reached, there will be no where some groups are allowed to score lower than others, or
the disabled are offered different opportunities than others.

NATIONAL CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK (NCF 2005)

This is one of four National Curriculum Frameworks published in 1975,
1988, 2000 and 2005 by the National Council of Education Research and Training
(NCERT) in India. The document provides the framework for making syllabi,
textbooks and teaching practices within the school education programmes in India.
The NCF 2005 document draws its policy basis from earlier government
reports on education as Learning without Burden and National Policy of Education
1986-1992 and focus group discussion. After wide ranging deliberations 21 National
Focus Group Position Papers have been developed under the agies of NCF 2005.
The state of art position papers provided inputs for formula of NCF 2005.
The approach and recommendations of NCF 2005 are for the entire
educational system. NCF 2005 has been translated into 22 languages and has
influenced the syllabi in 17 states. The NCERT gave a grant of Rs.10 lakh to each
state to promote NCF in the language of the state and to compare its current syllabus
with the syllabus proposed, so that a plan for future reforms could be made. Several
states have taken up this challenge. This exercise is being carried out with the
involvement of State Councils for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and
District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET).

Main Features of the NCF 2005

The document is divided into five area:

Perspective.
Learning and knowledge.
Curriculum areas, School Stage and Assessment.
School and classroom Environment
Systemic Reforms
Mother tongue as a medium of instructions.
Free development.
Availability of resources.

PERSPECTIVE
The basic concerns of education to enable children to make sense
of life and develop their potential, to define and pursue a purpose and recognise
the right of others to do the same stand uncontested and valid even today.
The perception, which places the individual in exclusively
competitive relationships, puts unreasonable stress on children and thus distorts
values. Education must be able to promote values that foster peace,
humaneness and tolerance in a multicultural society.
In order to realise educational objectives, the curriculum should
be conceptualised as a structure that articulates required experiences. A
committee appointed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in the
early 1990s had analysed this problem, tracing its roots to the systems
tendency to treat information as knowledge. In its report , Learning Without
Burden the committee pointed out that learning at school cannot become a
joyful experience on less we change our perception of the child as a receiver of
knowledge and move beyond the convention of using textbooks as the basis for
examination. The impulse to teach everything arises from lack of faith in
childrens own creative instinct and their capacity to construct knowledge out
of their experience.
Learning without Burden recommended a major change in the
design of syllabi and textbooks and also a change in social ethos. To make
teaching a means of harnessing the childs creative nature, the report
recommended a fundamental change in the matter of organising the school
curriculum and also in the system of examination, which forces children to
memorise information and to reproduce it.

Learning and Knowledge

It establishes the need to recognise the child as a natural learner and
knowledge as the outcome of the childs own activity.
Learning is a process of the construction of knowledge. Learners
actively construct their own knowledge by connecting new ideas to existing
ideas on the basis of materials/ activities presented to them. Learning takes
place through interactions with the around, nature, things and people, both
through actions and through language.
School and Classroom Environment
Learning takes place within a web of social relationships as
teachers and pupils interact both formally and informally.
Physical Environment.
Nurturing an enabling environment.
Participation of all children
Childrens Rights.
Policy of inclusion.
Discipline and participatory management.
Space for parents and the community.
Curriculum sites and learning resource.
Texts and books
Libraries
Educational Technology.
Tools and laboratories.
Time
Teachers autonomy and professional independence

Systemic Reforms
Concern for quality.
Teacher education for curriculum renewal.
Examination reform.
Work centered education.
Innovation in ideas and practices.
New partnerships.
To correct the distortion, the present NCF proposed five guiding
principles for curriculum development:
.Connecting knowledge to life outside the school.
. Ensure that learning shifts away from role method.
. Enriching the curriculum so that it goes beyond textbooks.
. Making examination more flexible and integrating them with classroom life.
. Nurturing an overriding identity informed by caring concerns within the
democratic policy of the country.
RELEVANCE IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Work centered education implies that the knowledge
base, social insights and skills of children in relation to their habitat, natural
resources and livelihood can be turned into a source of their dignity and
strength in the school system. It is to be recognised as a meaningful and
contextual entry point for organising the curricular experience in the school. It
is this educational process that calls for the application of critical pedagogy for
linking the experience of productive and other forms of work with global
knowledge. It will call for reconceptualisation and restructuring of specific
aspects such as academic autonomy and accountability, curriculum planning,

source of texts, teacher recruitment and teacher education, attendance and

school inspection, creating learning sites outside the school and public
examination.

KERALA CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK (KCF 2007)

The curriculum revision programme in Kerala is launched

as part of an endeavour to strengthen the primacy, secondary and higher
secondary school education in Kerala.
The curriculum revision programme in Kerala was
conceptualised on the basis of the recommendations of the National Curriculum
Framework (NCF 2005). Kerala had a strong influence in the formation of
NCF. Kerala could display the active working model of a learning process that
has its foundation in the principles of constructivism and a learner-centred,
activity based and process oriented pedagogy.
The learner should have an aptitude to approach the
complexities of nature in a comprehensive manner and to analyse and
differentiate its various aspects. The mother tongue should be the medium of
instruction.

RELEVANCE IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

At this stage learners are teenagers. The emotional and
physical features of the learners have wider implications while designing the
curriculum. We must create in them:
Awareness about the physical changes they undergo.
Inclination for high imagination.
Readiness to engage in activities that require leadership.
Inclination towards group learning.
Commitment to principles.
Tendency to establish ones individuality.
Awareness regarding gender sensitivity.
Willingness to engage in adventurous activities.
Along with the HS certificate, there will be certification on the
skill of the learner in any particular vocation. Within the school atmosphere,
there should be practical situations to utilise knowledge that the learner
create. An activity based curriculum that equips the learner to acquire self
confidence and self sufficiency should be introduced.
As part of the course, the learner must visit various institutions
that are related to their particular vocation and must get trained. For this
purpose hospitals and industrial units in the locality should be utilised.

CONCLUSION
This framework for curriculum presents a vision of what is
desirable for our children. It provides an understanding of issues relating to
childrens learning, the nature of knowledge and the school as an institution.
Large scale action programmes that are related to the development of Kerala
have been designed.

Incorporating all relevant suggestions as open and

transparent approach has been taken in formulating the curriculum.

REFERENCE
o www.wikipedia.com
National Curriculum framework
Kerala Curriculum Framework.
o www.ncf2005.com
o www.kcf2007.com