2. Content validity requires that the curriculum must convey significant and correct scientific information.
Simplification of content, which is necessary for adapting the curriculum to the cognitive level of the learner,
must not be so trivialized as to convey something basically flawed and/or meaningless.
3. Process validity requires that the curriculum should engage the learner in acquiring the methods and
processes that lead to the generation and validation of scientific knowledge and nurture the natural curiosity
and creativity of the child in science. Process validity is an important criterion since it helps the student in
‘learning to learn’ science.
4. Historical validity requires that the science curriculum be informed by a historical perspective, enabling the
learner to appreciate how the concepts of science evolve over time. It also helps the learner to view science as
a social enterprise and to understand how social factors influence the development of science.
5. Environmental validity requires that science be placed in the wider context of the learner’s environment,
local and global, enabling him/her to appreciate the issues at the interface of science, technology and society,
and equipping him/her with the requisite knowledge and skills to enter the world of work.
6. Ethical validity requires that the curriculum promote the values of honesty, objectivity, cooperation, and
freedom from fear and prejudice, and inculcate in the learner a concern for life and preservation of the
environment.
At the primary stage, the child should be engaged in joyfully exploring the world around and
harmonizing with it. The objectives at this stage are to nurture the curiosity of the child about the world
(natural environment, artifacts and people), to have the child engage in exploratory and hands-on activities for
acquiring the basic cognitive and psychomotor skills through observation, classification, inference, etc.; to
emphasise design and fabrication, estimation and measurement as a prelude to the development of
technological and quantitative skills at later stages; and to develop basic language skills: speaking, reading
and writing not only for science but also through science.
Science and social science should be integrated as ‘environmental studies’ as at present, with health as
an important component. Throughout the primary stage, there should be no formal periodic tests, no awarding
of grades or marks, and no detention.
At the upper primary stage, the child should be engaged in learning the principles of science through
familiar experiences, working with hands to design simple technological units and modules (e.g. designing
and making a working model of a windmill to lift weights) and continuing to learn more about the
environment and health, including reproductive and sexual health, through activities and surveys. Scientific
concepts are to be arrived at mainly from activities and experiments. Science content at this stage is not to be
regarded as a diluted version of secondary school science. Group activities, discussions with peers and
teachers, surveys, organisation of data and their display through exhibitions, etc. in schools and the
neighborhood should be important components of pedagogy. There should be continuous as well as periodic
assessment (unit tests, term-end tests). The system of ‘direct’ grades should be adopted. There should be no
detention. Every child who attends eight years of school should be eligible to enter Class IX.
At the secondary stage, students should be engaged in learning science as a composite discipline, in
working with hands and tools to design more advanced technological modules than at the upper primary stage,
and in activities and analyses on issues concerning the environment and health, including reproductive and
sexual health. Systematic experimentation as a tool to discover/verify theoretical principles, and working on
locally significant projects involving science and technology, are to be important parts of the curriculum at
this stage.
At the higher secondary stage, science should be introduced as separate disciplines, with emphasis on
experiments/technology and problem solving. The current two streams, academic and vocational, being
pursued as per NPE-1986, may require a fresh look in the present scenario. Students may be given the option
of choosing the subjects of their interest freely, though it may not be feasible to offer all the different subjects
in every school. The curriculum load should be rationalised to avoid the steep gradient between secondary and
higher secondary syllabi. At this stage, the core topics of a discipline, taking into account recent advances in
the field, should be identified carefully and treated with appropriate rigour and depth. The tendency to cover a
large number of topics of the discipline superficially should be avoided.
Outlook of Science Education-NCF 2005
Looking at the science education in India, three issues stand out clearly.
• Science education is still far from achieving the goal of equity mentioned in our Constitution.
• Science education in India develops competence, but does not encourage inventiveness and creativity.
• The overpowering examination system.
How to overcome these problems? (OR)
How to increase quality of Indian Science Education?
The science curriculum must be used as an instrument for achieving social change in order to reduce
the divide based on economic class, gender, caste, religion and region. We must use textbooks as one of the
primary instruments for equity, since for a great majority of school-going children, as also for their teachers,
it is the only accessible and affordable resource for education.
We must encourage alternative textbook writing m the country within the broad guidelines laid
down by the National Curriculum Framework. These textbooks should incorporate activities, observation and
experimentation, and encourage an active approach to science, connecting it with the world around the child,
rather than information-based learning.
Additionally, materials such as workbooks, co curricular and popular science books, and children's
encyclopedia would enhance children's access to information and ideas that need not go into the textbook,
loading it further, but would enrich learning At present there is a lack of such materials in regional languages.
The development of science corners and providing access to science experimentation kits and laboratories, in
rural areas are also important ways of equitably provisioning for science learning.
Information and Communication Technology (IC-T) is an important tool for bridging social divides.
ICT should be used in such a way that it becomes an opportunity equaliser by providing information, communication and computing resources in remote areas. ICT if used for connecting children and teachers
with scientists working in universities and research institutions would also help the students to know clearly
about scientists and their work.
For any qualitative change from the present situation, science education in India must undergo some changes.
• Rote learning should be discouraged.
• Inquiry skills should be supported and strengthened by language, design and quantitative skills.
• Schools should place much greater emphasis on co-curricular and extra-curricular activities aimed at
improving investigative ability, inventiveness and creativity. There should be a massive expansion of
such activities along the lines of the Children's Science Congress, being held successfully at present.
• A large-scale science and technology fair at the national level (with feeder fairs at cluster district state
levels) may be organised to encourage schools and teachers to participate in this movement.
• Examination reform should be initiated as a national mission, supported by adequate funding and
high-quality human resources. The mission should bring teachers, educationists and scientists on a
common platfonn; launch new ways of testing students that would reduce the high level of
examination-related stress: reduces the multiplicity of entrance examinations: and undertake research on
ways of testing multiple abilities other than formal scholastic competence.
These reforms, however, fundamentally need the overarching reform of teacher empowerment. No
reform, however well motivated and well planned, can succeed unless a majority of teachers feel empowered
to put it in practice. With active teacher participation, the reforms suggested above could have a cascadmg
effect on all stages of science teaching in our schools.
KERALA CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK – 2007
The curriculum revision programme in Kerala is launched as part of an endeavour to strengthen the
Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary school education in Kerala. The curriculum revision programme in
Kerala was conceptualised on the basis of the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework
(N.C.F-2005). The curriculum revision initiated in 1996 in Kerala had a strong influence in the formation of
National Curriculum Framework. Kerala could display the active working model of a learning process that
has its foundation in the principles of Constructivism and a learner-centered, activity-based and
process-oriented pedagogy.
Science Education in Kerala and in the country is facing myriad challenges. Perhaps it is an area that has been
widely criticized for its content and pedagogic treatment. The criticism, to a certain extent, appears justified as
we are not able to device a suitable approach for the learning of science and to accommodate latest
development and trends in the field.
Three pillars of KCF
- Critical Pedagogy-Social dimension of constructivism learner centered and process oriented classroom.
- Issue based curriculum (Issue based critical pedagogy) - sensitizes the learner on social issues and instills in them a need to react to these issues. Process of transforming the society by constructing knowledge.
- Social constructivism- Learning as a process of constructing knowledge in groups.
Major criticisms
The major criticisms levelled against the prevailing science education may include:
• There is a notion that the aim of science education is to transmit knowledge that has already been gathered
• The learning process is neither process-oriented nor learner-centred, thus the learners do not have the
opportunity to engage in learning activities and construct knowledge
• There is a tendency to promote rote learning of concepts in science to excel in examination
• the innate curiosity and scientific temperament of the learner are yet to find space
• examination centric textbooks and learning process
• incongruence between the content, and the level of the learner
• scientific temperament and science literacy are not addressed adequately
• learning of science fails to become interesting and challenging to the learner
• construction of knowledge has not been duly recognised
• science education has yet to become life related
• mechanisms for empowering learners in the pedagogic practices are yet to be strengthened
• the assessment of effectiveness of teaching science is completely neglected
Aims Of Science Education
