The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will introduce “Human Rights and Gender Studies” for Class XI and XII students from the coming academic year. The subject will be elective.
Similarly, a handbook for teachers, “Women Safety and Empowerment through Curriculum,” will be introduced in the training courses by the National Council for Teachers Education.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development has been receiving representations for promoting value education in schools so as to create awareness on crimes against women.
The National Policy on Education, 1986 lays down the guiding principles for education based on the constitutional mandate. It says the national system of education shall be based on a curriculum framework that will lay emphasis on cultural heritage, equality of sexes, removal of social barriers and observance of the small family norm. It mentions that education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of women.
On value education, the policy states that there is need for re-adjustment to the curriculum to make education a forceful tool for cultivating social and moral values.
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005 is based on the guiding principles of the Constitution and speaks of education inculcating value attitude and skills required for living in harmony with oneself and others. One of the focus groups on which the NCF, 2005 is based is “gender issue in education.”
Brought out by the National Council for Educational Research and Training in 2012, the NCF recommended an integrated and holistic approach for nurturing universal human values and at all stages of education instead of having moral education as a separate subject as it was earlier.
