Single National Curriculum (SNC) for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) to grade 5 was launched on 13th August 2020. It has been a talk of the townsince then. But interestingly, mostly people are not really sure what it holds for the future of education. Therefore, we come across very mixed opinions about it. Not only general population, but alsoprofessionals from education sector have contradicting views about it. If few people think that SNC will give a level playing field to learners from different strata of society. There are arguments against it claiming that it is against the very spirit of appreciating diversity. There have been intellectuals claiming that it will lay the foundation for an equal opportunity and just society. while, another school of thought has been trying to predict that elite private schools and religious Madrasas will never buy this idea.
As a psychologist I acknowledge that our personal experiences, knowledge and background shape our attitudes and perceptions.Understandably,in a diverse society, there ought to be a variety of view point about SNC. But I have noticed that in the case of SNC, many of us don’t really understand the concept.Most of the time, people very enthusiastically arguing for or against it, fail to distinguish curriculum from text books. In order to critically analyze SNC, its crucial to understand the concepts of curriculum guidelines and student learning outcomes.
The ECCE curriculum of SNC provides a detailed description of core competencies to be developed in this stage. Some of the competencies included personal social and emotional development, language and literacy and basic mathematical skills
It was back in 1999 that Maltese National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) was developed. In the foreword their minister discussed that those minimum standards were intended to ensure that their cultural integrity was preserved while required skills for next millennium were inculcated in the new generation. NMC of Malta was based on few principles, some of which were quality education, respecting diversity, developing creative and analytical thinking, inclusive education, education relevant to life skills and bilingual education. NMC provided overall 14 objectives of education and also outlined aims for different levels of education. All schools in Malta were required to ensure that intended aims of specific education level and over all education were covered by them while designing their syllabus.
New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS) provide intended learning outcomes for different subject areas. And school districts in State of New Jersey are expected to design their curriculum around those learning standards. for example, in kindergarten the two main objectives for Mathematics are to represent and compare whole numbers and to describe shapes and space. Similarly, students learning standards are provided for English, Science, social studies, computer science etc.
Through these international examples we can safely establish that SNC does not really mean asking every school to use same text books. Now that Curriculum for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) to grade 5 have been uploaded to the website of National Curriculum Council, it will help in clearing the doubts about the nature of SNC.
The ECCE curriculum of SNC provides a detailed description of core competencies to be developed in this stage. Some of the competencies included personal social and emotional development, language and literacy and basic mathematical skills. It also elaborates on expected learning outcomes and also provides ideas for implementing or teaching these concepts. Interestingly, this curriculum also provides ideas for creating positive and conducive learning environment in ECCE classrooms.
Being someone working for children with special needs for last two decades, I had my doubts on accessibility of SNC for children with special needs. I was relieved to know that a committee on inclusive education has been constituted to ensure that curriculum is diversity friendly and based on universal design to ensure accessibility for children from diverse cultural, religious and ability groups.
Even a week ago I could not imagine that I will be there when Single National Curriculum (SNC) will be launched. Now I will have this proud moment to share with my grandchildren that I was there that day, at National Curriculum Council (NCC). I witnessed the excitement and commitment of the team. I also met Mr. Muhammad Rafique Tahir, the person heading this team of NCC. He is undoubtedly a man of strong nerves and unmatched perseverance. He completed first phase of this challenging task with grace. It was heartening to know how extensively the consultations were organized in all provinces and with tanzeemulmadaras. He assured that all these efforts have been made with single intention of providing basis for quality education in our country. Student learning outcomes and developing conducive learning environment will be the yard sticks to make sure essential skills and knowledge are inculcated into the students.
Just one week ago, my own sources of information about SNC were medial reports or social medial posts. Now after getting to know about all the efforts and hard work of the NCC team, I can confidently say that the information I was able to access previously was clouded with speculations and misunderstandings.
I do agree that there is always room for improvement. Now Curriculum is available on NCC website. Visit the website and if you have any feedback, share it.
The writer is a Director Programs & Projects at Rising Sun Education & Welfare Society