Page 4 - Understanding NCERT Science 09

FOREWORD

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005, recommends that children’s
life at school must be linked to their life outside the school. This principle

marks a departure from the legacy of bookish learning which continues to shape
our system and causes a gap between the school, home and community. The
syllabi and textbooks developed on the basis of NCF signify an attempt to
implement this basic idea. They also attempt to discourage rote learning and

the maintenance of sharp boundaries between different subject areas. We hope
these measures will take us significantly further in the direction of a child-
centred system of education outlined in the National Policy on Education (1986).

The success of this effort depends on the steps that school principals and
teachers will take to encourage children to reflect on their own learning and to
pursue imaginative activities and questions. We must recognise that, given

space, time and freedom, children generate new knowledge by engaging with
the information passed on to them by adults. Treating the prescribed textbook
as the sole basis of examination is one of the key reasons why other resources

and sites of learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity and initiative is possible
if we perceive and treat children as participants in learning, not as receivers
of a fixed body of knowledge.
These aims imply considerable change in school routines and mode of

functioning. Flexibility in the daily time-table is as necessary as rigour in
implementing the annual calendar so that the required number of teaching
days are actually devoted to teaching. The methods used for teaching and

evaluation will also determine how effective this textbook proves for making
children’s life at school a happy experience, rather than a source of stress or
boredom. Syllabus designers have tried to address the problem of curricular
burden by restructuring and reorienting knowledge at different stages with

greater consideration for child psychology and the time available for teaching.
The textbook attempts to enhance this endeavour by giving higher priority and

Rationalised 2023-24