Plan panel for uniform education till class XII

A uniformity in the pattern of education till class XII across the country will help provide quality education, more so at the secondary and higher secondary levels, according to an expert panel of the Planning Commission. The body has also suggested that the six-year-old National Mission for Secondary Education (NMSE), also known as Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan) must include education up to class XII.

The expert panel, which the government constituted to suggest measures to improve quality of education for inclusion in the 12th five-year plan, has also called for a thorough review of the 10+2+3 pattern of education currently in operation across many states. It has also proposed its possible integration into one, observing that the current system was ineffective in meeting the goal of providing quality education.

There is also a suggestion to review the teaching methods of science and mathematics in schools so as to make them more job-oriented. Officials said some panel members are of the opinion that children should have the option to choose subjects at class IX itself rather than make them wait till XI.

This, the panel said, would help them in preparing better for future challenges. Noted an official: “The teaching of science and maths needs to change to address the current challenges and problems.”

The recommendations could form part of the approach paper to the 12th five-year plan which is in its final stages of preparation. The NMSE was conceptualised in 2005 at a meeting of Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) chaired by (late) Arjun Singh who was then human resource development minister.

As a follow-up to the deliberations in the CABE meeting, a committee was then constituted under Rajasthan’s education minister Ghanshyam Tiwari. It had recommended uniform education up to class 9th-10th across the country. The NMSE was to start from 2009-10, but that was delayed. Now, the expert panel of the Planning Commission has not only recommended immediate launching of the mission, but also sought to make it more broad-based.

This April, in a presentation made by the Planning Commission to the full plan meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh listed universalisation of secondary education by 2017 as one of the primary objectives. Officials said members of the expert panel were of the view that emphasis hitherto had been on primary and higher education — and not on secondary education.

They said central schools or schools, which are affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, currently have a uniform course curriculum till 12th even as several states schools follow the pattern of the local state boards. Bihar and Haryana have several schools affiliated to the state board that does not follow the same curriculum. Hence the need to change over to a uniform course structure.

The 11th five-year-plan initially allocated a sum of Rs 269,873 crore for the ministry of human resource development, of which Rs 1,84,930 crore was for department of school education and literacy. The rest was for the department of higher education.