National Steering Committee to prioritise revisions; semester system, Board exams, inclusion of Indian languages in focus

The National Steering Committee meeting in Bengaluru today will look into a reassessment of the proposed semester system and multiple board exams, as well as the mandatory inclusion of Indian languages in Classes XI-XII, while finalising the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

Concerns have been raised by RSS-affiliated organisations regarding the absence of Indian languages in higher classes and the potential for neglecting their learning. Similarly, school boards have expressed reservations about the feasibility of the semester system and multiple board exams for Classes IX-XII. The official announcement of the final NCF document is expected to be made by the Central government later this month.

To address these concerns, the Committee aims to specify “Indian languages” in categories R2 and R3, departing from the open-ended approach in the draft NCF. The draft had stated that students would learn at least three languages during their school years – “R1,” “R2,” and “R3” – with R1 being the commonly used local language, R2 representing any other language, including English, and R3 encompassing all languages other than R1 or R2.

Furthermore, as per the draft NCF, students in Classes IX to XII were required to complete two essential courses from each of the eight curricular areas. The curriculum design for Classes XI-XII mandated the completion of 16 choice-based courses to graduate from Grade 12. These eight curricular areas encompassed humanities, social science, science, mathematics and computing, arts, vocational education, sports, and interdisciplinary subjects. However, languages were grouped with literature and philosophy within the humanities category, raising concerns that they might be easily overlooked when selecting essential courses.