Thiruvananthapuram: The State Council of Educational Research and Training will make changes in the school curriculum to make it suitable for the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF).
The state curriculum committee had earlier decided to include skill development in the curriculum from next year onwards.
SCERT director J. Prasad told Deccan Chronicle that NSQF was introduced in selected higher secondary schools this year. It will be extended to all schools from next year. The textbooks for classes IX and X would have to be revised to include these portions and to comply with the requirements of hi-tech classrooms, Mr Prasad said.
Though a comprehensive curriculum revision was also planned, it would need more time, he said.
The NSQF is a competency-based framework that organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude.
These levels, graded from one to ten, are defined in terms of learning outcomes which the learners must possess regardless of whether they are obtained through formal, non-formal or informal learning, sources said.
The NSQF would also help shift the emphasis to outcome-based learning both in the general and vocational space. Today, there is a lack of uniformity in the outcomes associated with different qualifications across institutions, each with its own duration, curriculum, entry requirements as well as title. As per the NSQF framework, these programmes will have to be initiated through collaboration with various private entities.
Courses on topics, including retail, health care, information technology, agriculture, beauty and wellness and auto-mobile have to be provided to students through NSQF. However, the present plan in the state is to introduce it as part of the syllabus in textbooks.
The curriculum was last revised during the tenure of the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government based on the Kerala Curriculum Framework 2007 (KCF). However, there was a general consensus that there was no need to make major changes in the perspective put forward through the KCF as the objectives of the same was in tune with the present times.
