Daily Current Affairs

National Curriculum Framework for School Education released (GS Paper 2, Education)

Why in news?

• Recently, the Union Minister for Education released National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE), marking an important and transformative step towards the implementation of National Education Policy.
• He addressed the 1st Joint workshop of the National Curriculum Framework Oversight Committee and the National Syllabus and Teaching-Learning Material Committee.

 

K. Kasturirangan Committee for NCF-SE:

• Under the stewardship of Prof. K Kasturirangan, a Steering Committee was formed to create a curriculum aligned with the National Education Policy 2020, emphasizing the 5+3+3+4 design of schooling.
• This framework addresses the entire educational journey from foundational to secondary stages.
• The framework introduces multidisciplinary education, nurturing values, fostering creative pedagogies, and preparing students for practical problem-solving.

 

Details:

• The National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) is the curriculum framework for the 5+3+3+4 design of schooling as proposed by the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020).
• It also recommended the formulation of a new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) to respond to this four-stage school design.
• The entire curriculum framework was released for all the four stages:

1. Foundational Stage
2. Preparatory Stage
3. Middle Stage
4. Secondary Stage

 

Key Highlights:

• Comprehensive curriculum framework covering all 4 stages of schooling: It comprehensively covers all the four stages of schooling. The NCF-SE has articulated the learning standards to be achieved and the principles for selection of content, pedagogy, and assessments for achieving the learning standards.
• Enable real improvement in practise of education in the country: It is designed to enable and help actual change in practise on the ground. The NCF-SE has made conscious and deliberate effort to communicate to all stakeholders in school education including Curriculum and Syllabus developers, so that it is useable in practical circumstances.
• Learning Standards with clear, specific, and rigorous flow-down: It articulates specific learning standards for all school subjects that gives clear direction for action for all stakeholders in the school system, particularly Teachers. The Learning Standards have defined specific competencies to be achieved at the end of each stage for each school subject.
• Development of Knowledge, Capacities, and Values: The curriculum focuses on development of knowledge with genuine understanding, fundamental capacities such as critical thinking and creativity, and constitutional and human values.
• Empowering teachers and schools: The NCF-SE designed to enable and empower teachers and schools for the full flowering of their creativity and enhanced engagement.
• Engaging and effective pedagogy: It enables the entire range of age and context appropriate pedagogy, from play-based, activity-based, inquiry-based, dialogue based, and more. This would also use effective, widely available, and highly engaging teaching-learning-material, including textbooks.
• Transforming assessment including exams:  Assessment and exams at all levels to be transformed, to enable genuine learning and reduce stress, including the Board exams.
• Importance of School Culture: School culture and practises are to be developed as an integral and important part of the curriculum. 
• Rooted in India: The curriculum is rooted in India and is informed by the wealth of Indian knowledge and thought on education. Contributions to the knowledge in various disciplines by Indians from the ancient to contemporary times have been integrated into the curricular goals of all school subjects.
• Multidisciplinary education: All children to go through multidisciplinary education to develop an integrated and holistic perspective and learning.
• Equity and inclusion: The NCF-SE is informed by principles to ensure equity and inclusion in all its aspects, from content and pedagogy, to, school culture and practises.
• Renewed emphasis on Art, and, Physical Education & Well-being: The school subjects of Art Education and Physical Education & Well-being are given a renewed emphasis in the curriculum by defining specific learning standards to be achieved and recommended time allocation in the school timetables. Art Education encompasses both visual arts and performing arts and has equal emphasis on making, thinking about, and appreciating artwork.
• Environmental Education: Responding to the triple challenge of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and the criticality of environmental awareness and sustainability in today’s world, Environmental Education is given due emphasis across all stages of schooling culminating in a separate area of study in the Secondary Stage.
• Vocational Education: The NEP 2020 has made strong recommendations for Vocational Education to be an integral part of school education and the NCF-SE has included specific learning standards, content, pedagogy, and assessments for Vocational Education for all stages of schooling. The curriculum proposes engagement in the three different forms of work – work with life forms (agriculture, animal husbandry), work with materials and machines, and work in human services.
• Multilingualism and Indian Languages: The NCF-SE has given the necessary emphasis on multilingualism and on learning languages native to India. It expects all students to be proficient in at least three languages, at least two of which are native to India.
• Conceptual understanding and procedural fluency in Mathematics: The school subject of Mathematics & Computational Thinking has emphasis on conceptual understanding along with procedural fluency. Higher order curricular goals such as problem solving, mathematical thinking, coding, and communication are given due importance.
• Capacities for Scientific Inquiry: Science Education emphasises the development of capacities for scientific inquiry along with acquiring knowledge of fundamental theories, laws, and conceptual structures of science in disciplines such as Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science.
• Interdisciplinary understanding of Social Science through themes: The social science curriculum expects students to systematically study human societies and explore the relationships between individuals, society, the natural environment, social institutions, and organizations. This is to be studied through themes in an interdisciplinary manner in the Middle Stage and developing disciplinary depth in the Secondary Stage.
• Flexibility and Choice in Secondary Stage:  There are no hard separations between academic and vocational subjects, or between science, social science, art, and physical education. Students can choose interesting combinations of subjects for receiving their school-leaving certificates.
• Interdisciplinary Areas of Study: Interdisciplinary Areas of Study has been introduced as a separate subject of study in the Secondary Stage.

 

The NCF-SE is organised into five parts:

1. Part A articulates the broad aims of school education, and the desirable values and dispositions, capacities and skills, and knowledge that are required for achieving these aims. It also lays down the principles and approaches for content selection, pedagogy, and assessment and gives the rationale and design principles for the four stages of schooling.
2. Part B focuses on some of the important cross-cutting themes of NCF-SE, viz., rootedness in India, education for values, learning and caring about the environment, inclusive education, guidance and counselling, and use of educational technology.
3. Part C has separate chapters for each school subject. Each of these chapters have Learning Standards defined for all the relevant stages of schooling along with specific guidelines for content selection, pedagogy, and assessments appropriate for that subject. The part also has a chapter on the Foundational Stage and one on design and range of subjects in Grades 11 and 12.
4. Part D handles school culture and processes that enable a positive learning environment and inculcate desirable values and dispositions.
5. Part E, outlines the requirements for an overall ecosystem of schooling that would enable the achievement of the aims of the NCF-SE. This includes aspects of teacher capacities and service conditions, physical infrastructure requirements, and the role of the community and family. 

 

Implementing a car safety programme

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

Why in news?

• The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has rolled out an indigenous star-rating system for crash testing cars under which vehicles will be assigned between one to five stars indicating their safety in a collision.
• Called the Bharat New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), the rating system will be voluntary and will come into effect from October 1, 2023.

Objective:

• The objective of the programme is to help consumers make an informed decision before purchasing a car, thereby spurring demand for safer cars.
•  India sees nearly 1.5 lakh road fatalities in a year, accounting for 10% of deaths due to road crashes globally with only 1% of the world’s vehicles.
• According to a World Bank study, road crashes are estimated to cost the Indian economy between 5 to 7% of GDP a year.

 

What is Bharat NCAP?

• Under the Bharat NCAP, cars voluntarily nominated by automobile manufacturers will be crash tested as per protocols laid down in the soon-to-be-published Automotive Industry Standard 197.
• The programme is applicable to passenger vehicles with not more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat with gross vehicle weight not exceeding 3,500 kgs. Only the base model of a particular variant will be tested.
• Cars will be assigned a rating between one star to five stars after being evaluated on three parameters;

1. adult occupant protection,
2. child occupant protection and
3. safety assist technologies present in the car.

• The first two parameters will be calculated with the help of three different kinds of tests, which include a frontal offset test where a vehicle is driven at 64 kmph and with 40% overlap into a deformable barrier which represents the oncoming vehicle, which replicates a crash between two cars of the same weight.
• Other tests are the side impact test at 50 kmph and the pole-side impact test (where a car is crashed into a rigid pole sideways) at 29 kmph.
• Though Bharat NCAP is voluntary, in certain cases cars may be subjected to a crash test such as for a base model of a popular variant (minimum clocked sale of 30,000 units), or when the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways recommends a model for testing based on market feedback or in the interest of public safety.

 

How has Bharat NCAP evolved?

• The testing protocols adopted by the Bharat NCAP are modelled on the Global NCAP, which is a project of the U.K.-based NGO, Towards Zero Foundation.
• It serves as a platform for co-operation among new car assessment programmes worldwide, including countries such as the U.S. which has the world’s oldest crash testing regime since 1978.
• The NGO launched a Safer Cars for India campaign in 2014 when it released the country’s first independent crash tests covering the Suzuki-Maruti Alto 800, the Tata Nano, Ford Figo, Hyundai i10 and Volkswagen Polo. All but one of the five models failed the test at 56km/h and all scored zero stars at 64 km/h.
• With no airbags, the Swift also scored zero stars but a separate test of a version sold in Latin America with air bags scored three stars which demonstrated the model’s potential for improvement.
• In 2018, Tata achieved India’s first 5-star cars and now manufacturers are competing to obtain four and five- star results and using ratings in their marketing and there has been a sharp fall in the number of zero- star models in the Indian market.

 

What is the way forward?

• India will need to develop its crash testing capabilities and knowledge expertise for the Bharat NCAP programme to be implemented meaningfully, such as a software system wired to the dummies placed inside cars to assess the nature and extent of injuries to analyse scores.
• Over the years, India will also have to align Bharat NCAP with global standards by expanding testing parameters.
• For example, the U.S. NCAP also includes a roll-over test which tests whether a vehicle is vulnerable to tipping up on the road in a severe manoeuvre.
• Japan’s NCAP covers electric shock protection performance after a collision, performance of neck injury protection in a rear end collision, passenger seat belt reminder evaluation, evaluation of pedestrian protection technologies apart from preventive safety performance such as autonomous emergency braking system, lane departure prevention system, rear-view monitoring system and pedal misapplication, among others.

 

After Chandrayaan-3’s landing, the experiments: lunar quakes and water-ice on Moon

(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)

Why in news?

• After rolling down a ramp from the Chandrayaan-3 lander, the six-wheel, 26-kg rover, which is capable of slowly moving up to 500 metres, will begin its job of lunar exploration.

 

Details:

• The landing has happened at lunar dawn, and the six payloads on board the lander and rover will start collecting data soon after to get as much science as possible in the single lunar day or 14 Earth days for which they will remain operable.

 

Mission experiments:

The lander has four experiments on board.

1. The Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA) will study the electrons and ions near the surface of the moon and how they change over time.
2. The Chandra’s Surface Thermo physical Experiment (ChaSTE) will study the thermal properties of the lunar surface near the polar region. Chandrayaan-3 has landed around 70 degree south latitude, the closest that any spacecraft has reached to the lunar South Pole.
3. The Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) will measure the lunar quakes near the landing site and study the composition of the Moon’s crust and mantle.
4. The LASER Retroreflector Array (LRA) is a passive experiment sent by NASA that acts as a target for lasers for very accurate measurements for future missions.

 

There are two scientific experiments on the rover:

1. The LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) will determine the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface.
2. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) will determine the composition of elements such as magnesium, aluminium, silicon, potassium, calcium, titanium, and iron in the lunar soil and rocks.

 

Discovery of water:

• The southern polar region of the Moon is known to have deep craters that remain in permanent darkness, with a high likelihood of having water-ice.

 

Findings by Chandrayaan-1:

• Perhaps the most important discovery made by instruments on board Chandrayaan-1 was the discovery of water and hydroxyl (OH) molecules in the Moon’s thin atmosphere (exosphere) as well as on the lunar surface.
• India’s Moon Impact Probe (MIP), a payload that was deliberately crashed on the lunar surface near the South Pole helped study the concentration of water and hydroxyl molecules in the lunar atmosphere.
• Another payload called mini-SAR helped detect the subsurface deposits of water-ice in the permanently shadowed regions within the craters near the South Pole.
• A third payload developed by NASA called Moon Mineralogy Mapper or M3 also helped detect these molecules on the surface of the Moon.

 

Chandrayaan-2:

• Chandrayaan-2, which was designed to further study the water on the Moon, helped in separately identifying the water and the hydroxyl molecules, and mapping water features across the Moon for the first time.

 

Buried lava tubes:

• The terrain mapping camera and hyperspectral imager on board Chandrayaan-1 detected an underground lava tube, which can provide a safe environment for human habitation in the future.
• It can protect against hazardous radiation, small meteoric impacts, extreme temperatures, and dust storms on the surface of the Moon.

 

Magma ocean thesis:

• The Moon is believed to have been formed after an early piece of the Earth separated due to an impact. The energy generated by the impact is believed to have led to the melting of the Moon’s surface. This is called the magma ocean hypothesis.
• The M3 payload on board Chandrayaan-1 picked up a specific type of lighter-density crystals on the surface of the Moon, which could be found on the surface only if it were liquid once.

 

A dynamic Moon:

• Findings from the Chandrayaan-1 mission also showed that the Moon’s interior was dynamic and interacted with the exosphere, contrary to the belief that it was dormant.
• The terrain mapping camera found evidence of volcanic vent, lava pond, and lava channels as recent as 100 million years old, indicating recent volcanic activity.
• Measurements of carbon dioxide by the MIP also pointed towards de-gassing from the surface. This shows an interaction of the lunar surface with the exosphere even in the absence of impacts by meteors.

 

Solar flares:

• The Solar X-Ray Monitor on the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter was able to observe many solar microflares outside the active region as well as the elemental abundance from the not-so-bright solar corona.
• These observations, which were so far only done for larger solar flares, can give scientists clues to the mystery of coronal heating, why the Sun’s atmospheric layer (corona) is a million degrees hot even though the surface is just over 5,700 degrees Celsius.

 

Mapping of minerals

• CLASS X-ray Fluorescence experiment has mapped ~ 95% of the lunar surface in X-rays for the first time. X-ray spectrometers flown to the Moon in the past 50 years together have covered only less than 20% of the surface, according to ISRO.
• Both the Chandrayaan missions have mapped even regions from where sample return missions haven’t happened.
• These studies have shown that oxygen is abundant as oxides within the minerals on the Moon. This can be exploited as fuel for future missions.

 

Way Forward:

• The Chandrayaan-3 payloads will further the science learnings of the two predecessor missions by studying lunar quakes, mineral compositions, and the electrons and ions near the surface of the Moon.
• The mission will attempt to study water-ice, the presence of which was detected by Chandrayaan-1.