Shri Kapil Sibal Moots Institutional Framework between NCERT and SCERTs Meeting of Central and State Regulatory Institutions in School Education held Today

   Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, has mooted that an institution framework be set up constituting of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs). This framework, could include the CBSE, COBSE and NCTE as invitees, and would be a mechanism for coordination, for continuous flow of information and for dialogue, the focus being on improving quality of education throughout the country, the Minister added. He also underlined that the effort of the educational administrators and curriculum developers should be to maximize standards rather than settling for minimum standards. He was speaking at a meeting of Central and State Regulatory Institutions for School Education, here today.

   The Minister stated that as per the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) teacher qualification norms under the Right to Education Act, Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) will be an essential qualification. He said that while the NCTE is developing the standards and benchmarks for this Teacher Eligibility Test, State Governments would be responsible for administering these tests and it is the responsibility of State Governments to ensure that these tests conform to high standards. He also said that the institutional mechanism between NCERT and SCERTs should work towards developing question banks which could be used by States for their Teacher Eligibility Test. 

   The Minister also talked about the development of the National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF). He said that the Government has begun a process of series of consultations with different industry groups to facilitate development of vocational curriculum as demanded by the needs/job requirements of these industry groups. He called upon the State Governments to identify skills specific to their states and develop curriculum for these skills. 

   The NCERT in its presentation, among other things, stated that the Government is proposing to set up a 24x7 Channel for teaching through ICT. The NCERT would be the nodal agency for this channel and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) would be the collaborating agencies. The target audience for this channel would be school students in the 5-18 years age group, open education students and neo adult literates. 


Source - PIB