Knowledge
Rejoice the NCF for foundational years is here!
ECA-APER is organizing its first workshop cum discussion on the NCF on the 12th of November in Mumbai.
One of the lacunas in our early childhood education programs, both at the government and private level was the lack of a proper curriculum and framework for early years. We have ratified the UN convention of rights for children, in which ECE is a goal and commitment but yet we had never invested enough or committed to a proper curriculum and assessment that is developmentally appropriate.
That is why it is time to rejoice that the NCF is here, it’s not time to crib or lament that it is 75 years late!
This NCF is different from all other previous attempts in the following manner-
- Look at any document’s glossary of terms and one can understand the robustness of the document. Terms like curricular goals, competency, decoding, developmental delays, developmental goals, domains of development, emotional intelligence, encoding, experiential learning, integrated learning, holistic progress card, inclusion, multilingualism, spatial skills, subitizing, whole language approach, mapping competencies – all these inform us that the document is not just a vision but shows the pathway, the tools, and the training to achieve the goals set by the NEP-2020
- A lacuna that still exists in our country is the lack of a structured common ECE teacher training program that can be commonly implemented for all states and government and private schools alike- like we have the B.Ed. program. But this framework works as a teacher training and teacher guidance tool that will become the guru, mentor, and teacher for all ECE teachers.
- Parents can use this document to judge the quality of early childhood education programs before they enroll their children. Now parents can interview the school on areas of the NCF instead of the schools interviewing the child!
- Indian Pioneers like Gijubhai Badheka, Tarabai Modak, Anutai Wagh, and Gandhi are acknowledged in this document and so are global pioneers like Rousseau, Froebel, Dewey, Montessori Jerome Bruner, Vygotsky, Piaget, Bronfenbrenner, all are covered.
Overall I would give 10 out of 10 to this 360-page NCF as it scores heavily on research, the vastness of areas covered, and a great combination of curriculum, assessment, and teacher training. Easy reading, clear explanations, clearly mapped to the NIPUN document, and a much necessary connection to the James Heckman theory on return on investment in ECE.
ECA-APER is organizing its first workshop cum discussion on the NCF on the 12th of November in Mumbai, and later on in other cities too. For more details log on to
About the author:
Dr. Swati Popat Vats is the Founder President, Early Childhood Association & Association for Primary Education and Research