The Minister for Education, Naeem Akhtar today informed the Legislative Council that the textbooks of Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education (JKBOSE) are of national standards and are prepared in a scientific and structured manner and in conformity with the guidelines framed by NCERT.The Minister was replying to a Calling Attention Motion moved by Surinder Mohan Ambardar in the Upper House today.The Minister said the Curriculum and Syllabi for the books has been developed by Curriculum Development and Research Wing (CDRW) of the Academic Division of J&K BOSE. He further said this task has been carried out by engaging reputed subject experts from different fields of education, preferably from University of Jammu/Kashmir, Colleges, School Education Department, i.e. SIEs, DIETs and Schools, retired persons with academic background. He said experts from National organizations and private institutions have been involved in preparing of textual materials.
In order to strengthen the curriculum, the Minister said the JKBOSE has made an endeavor to revise the syllabi and the textbooks in accordance with National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005. NCF 2005 strongly recommends contextualization so that curriculum should not uproot the learner from his cultural environment but nurture his identity so that he does not feel a sense of alienation, he added.The Minister said that as per the MoU between NCERT and BOSE for adoption/adaptation of textual material of NCERT textbooks, the development of textbooks is carried out by using textual materials of NCERT as benchmark with some contextualization by locale-specific knowledge to imbibe the real spirit of NCF 2005. He said the Syllabi and textbooks prescribed by JKBOSE are based on the thematic approach of NCERT textbooks with 20 percent contextualization in each subject with locale-specific contents from class 1s to 10t keeping in mind the diverse socio-cultural realities of the children of J&K.JKBOSE has adopted Common Core Curriculum document prepared by CBOSE New Delhi in 2009 for four core subjects i.e. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology at Higher Secondary Level and after introducing the common core curriculum, the competitive edge of students has improved significantly, the Minister said.
The Minister said that the Secretary, Department of School Education & Literacy, GoI, convened a meeting of all Chairpersons of State Education Boards in 2015 which was also attended by the representatives of MHRD, IIT, NIIT, NIOS and other stakeholders to discuss threadbare the issue restricting the syllabi. He said it was observed that in view of diversity of the country, while syllabus tailor-made as per the local requirements is necessary, however, to ensure all children in the country learn topics which are basic minimum, preparation and adaptation of uniform core curriculum and common question paper design was agreed upon. JKBOSE has adopted the same pattern in the curriculum as well as assessment and evaluation.The Minister said that in conformity with the policy of the State Government to encourage development of local languages, the JKBOSE has already developed syllabi and curriculum of the six regional languages, viz. Kashmiri, Dogri, Punjabi, Pahari, Bhoti and Gojri, while the textbooks for Shina and Balti have also been prepared.