The draft Kerala Curriculum Framework (KCF) on pre-school education has called for a unified curriculum to ensure quality early childhood care and development.
The draft pre-school curriculum framework released by Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty on Monday, however, fails to elaborate how a unified curriculum will be implemented against the significant challenge of various agencies running pre-school institutions in the State.
At the same time, the framework lays emphasis on coordination between the agencies running pre-school institutions.
The framework is intended to bring pre-school into the formal education sector but a policy-level decision by the government at least on implementing the same curriculum in all pre-school institutions will be needed to streamline it, say officials.
Activities of the General Education department, Local Self-Government department, Women and Child Development department, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development departments, and Health department should be directed towards the objective of implementing the pre-school education envisaged by the government.
Flagging the problem of lack of uniformity in teacher qualification, the framework says the minimum qualification for a pre-school teacher should be higher secondary education and they should have completed pre-primary teacher education from a government-recognised institution. Underlining the importance of a qualification examination, officials say those who have not cleared it should be allowed time to do so.
The framework says evaluation of pre-school students should be informal and completely child friendly. Formal evaluations tools such as examinations are not at all desirable. Continuous observation and evaluation should be the main tool. Summative assessment has little relevance in pre-school education, it says.
Children should also get opportunities to evaluate themselves. Along with student evaluation, that of pre-school institutions too is mentioned. Besides teachers, parents too should evaluate children.
Communication in pre-school should be in the mother tongue, the framework says. For easy and effective communication between student and teacher and student and student in a classroom, mother mtongue is the most desirable, it says.
Distribution of pre-schools should be such that all students are able to access these. In hilly areas, forests, or the coastal belt, pre-schools should be set up wherever necessary. Pre-schools and anganwadis should also be places where children can be safe from the time the parents go for work till they return. Geographical accessibility and safety should be considered while opening new preschools, says the KCF prepared by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
The framework lists lack of cohesion in instructional methods, inadequate comprehension among parents of objectives of pre-school education, unscientific preschool teacher education, lack of facilities in preschools in some areas as some of the other problems in the sector.
