Maha unveils new curriculum framework for early education

Mumbai: The state government has introduced a new curriculum framework this week for the foundational stage, which includes three years of pre-schooling and classes 1 and 2, in line with the new National Curriculum Framework-Foundational Stage (NCF-FS). The framework- State Curriculum Framework for the Foundational Stage (SCF-FS)- places a strong emphasis on the use of a child’s mother tongue or home language as the primary medium of instruction for early education.

“The curriculum for the initial five years of education will be based on interactive activities, games, and exploration. By the time students enter class 3, they are expected to possess the ability to read and write clearly,” said an official from the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) who was also part of a committee appointed by the government to decide curriculum for foundation state.

In order to implement this initiative, a dedicated committee has been formed to focus on the foundational level, spanning three years of Anganwadi (kindergarten) and classes 1 and 2.

The SCF-FS draft emphasises that the medium of instruction for the foundational stage should ideally be the child’s home language. It advocates for using the mother tongue in teaching-learning activities while also employing it as a bridge to expose students to other languages, including English.

“In line with the NCF-FS, the state’s draft curriculum recommends a pedagogy centred on activities and various teaching-learning materials. The draft indicates no use of traditional textbooks for preschool children, instead only when students reach ages 6-8 are textbooks introduced, designed to contain content from classroom instruction and serve as workbooks,” added a member of the committee.

However, introducing multiple languages at the foundational level is seen as a challenge. Rashmi Desai, a pre-primary teacher in a Mumbai-based school, expressed concerns about the potential misapplication of pedagogical approaches when introducing home language in city schools at this early stage. “In cities like Mumbai even though Marathi-speaking people also prefer their first language as English rather than the Marathi. There are very few non-Marathi parents in the city who prefer to choose Marathi as a second language, especially parents from international boards,” Desai added.

The draft of around 342 pages also focused on the nutrition as well as the health of the students. Despite the groundbreaking nature of the SCF-FS, the state government has faced criticism for not drafting a more independent curriculum framework that caters to its unique needs and circumstances.

Kishore Darak, an Ahmednagar-based educationist said, “Tendency of the state to almost fully translate the draft by the NCERT highly deskills SCERT and severely curtails state’s right and autonomy of decisions about education, which is in the concurrent list. While biographical notes on Tarabai Modak and Anutai Wagh appear in the draft, it is a mere cosmetic addition. Considering the relevance of their unprecedented and contextualised work in early childhood education space, their work should have been treated as the overarching framework for the draft.”

Darak further stated that interestingly, the specific mention of ‘Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Gorakhpur’ which doesn’t even appear in the NCERT draft indicates the ‘right turn’ taken by the draft. Dishing out a bulky draft of 340+ pages and seeking responses in 7 days without properly advertising seems to be the strategy of creating the illusion of democratic decision-making. SCERT must change the timeline to at least 3 weeks.