Shishir Jaipuria
Chairman, Seth Anandram Jaipuria Group of Educational Institutions

Shishir Jaipuria is chairman of the Seth Anandram Jaipuria Group of Educational Institutions which comprise 19 schools, five preschools, two B-schools and a teacher training academy with a total of 20,000 students. Also chairman of FICCI ARISE (Alliance for Reimagining School Education).

• NEP 2020 has mandated that “curriculum content” is reduced in all subjects to “enhance essential learning and critical thinking”. Therefore, I expect the new NCFSE to prune content load. This will benefit schools across the country. They can use the time saved to encourage discussion, debate, experimentation, tinkering. This will surely improve the thinking and problem solving skills of our children.
• I expect the new curriculum national framework to prepare India’s children for Industry 4.0 by introducing digital literacy, computational thinking, financial literacy, communication, collaboration, higher order thinking, and creativity skills. The NCFSE and NCF should suggest ways and means to teach social, emotional, ethical learning and global citizenship. Additionally, it should advise teachers to look out for skill development internships and vocational education opportunities for their pupils.
• A notable feature of NEP 2020 is the high importance accorded to multidisciplinary education. I am looking forward to NCFSE to make this happen by providing students flexibility to learn subjects of their interest. For instance, a student learning physics should also be free to study history or geography which will be given marks/credits.
• To raise Indian K-12 teaching-learning standards to global norms, the NCF should provide guidelines on how to introduce new pedagogies, subjects and new assessment methodologies into Indian education. Teachers should be provided broad guidelines to integrate UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their curriculums.
• Beyond knowledge and skills, NCFSE should also suggest how to integrate value-based education into class curriculums to develop sensitive, empathic, ethical and responsible citizens. Moreover, as prescribed in NEP 2020, the new framework should recommend ways and means to integrate Indian heritage, culture, pluralism and knowledge systems into school curriculums.