NEW DELHI: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Telangana and Puducherry governments are yet to give their approvals while Manipur and Nagaland have reported budget constraints leading to missed deadlines, which could delay the making of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF). The government had set May 2022 as the deadline for finalisation of the theme-based 25 position papers by the National Focus Groups.

However, according to the latest state-wise progress report, exclusively accessed by the TOI, these eight states, which also include Goa, have not yet started the mobile surveys as well as the district level consultations (DLCs), which would form the basis of the state’s position papers.

Even as a face-to-face meeting of the chairpersons and members of the 25 National Focus Groups is being convened on March 22, there are six other states which have completed less than 50% of the DLCs as on March 15, 2022. The eight states have also not yet created their State Focus Groups and the State Steering Committees entrusted with designing the state frameworks based on the inputs at district-level.

Among the states which have completed their mobile survey, but are yet to complete 50% of the DLCs are Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Union Territories like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep are also in this category. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), while seeking finalisation of the school curriculum by August 2022, has set the deadline for the states to complete the district level consultations followed by development of the state position papers by February and April 2022 respectively.

On November 27 and 29, 2021 while sharing the roadmap for the rollout with the state coordinators/ officials NCERT also stated states are supposed to conduct a mobile app survey with anywhere between 500 and 6,000 community members depending on the density of the population and asked the states to complete the work within four weeks. NCERT shared the guidelines for the position papers with the states in January 2022.

As per NCERT’s notification issued in December 2021, based on the inputs from the State Focus Groups, the 25 National Focus Groups will submit their position papers to the 12-member National Steering Committee headed by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan by May 2022.

A senior official at the ministry of education, said since there is a departure from earlier practice and the NCF in the making is unique with it based on a bottom-up approach where the national framework will be based on State Curriculum Frameworks devised on the basis of district-level consultations with various stakeholders, “timely inputs from States/ UTs is key to meet deadlines. However, there has been a little delay for numerous reasons faced by some states.”

As per the state-wise progress report as on March 15, 2022, states like Manipur and Nagaland have reported budget constraints, states from the northeast region highlighted network and internet connectivity issues.