Question : VALUE EDUCATION

(a) whether the Government has issued any directives/guidelines to the schools to foster/inculcate moral values in children through school curriculum;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether the CBSE, NCERT and the State Education Boards have taken any steps in this regard and if so, the details thereof;

(d) whether the issues involving gender sensitivity, gender equality and the respect for women are also proposed to be included in moral value based education; and

(e) if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (SHRIMATI SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI)

(a) to (e) Through the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which is the apex national body for curriculum and training in School Education, materials on value education have been developed and disseminated in the context of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005. The NCERT recommends implementing education for peace as an integrated and holistic intervention to complement education. The NCERT has brought out a publication “Values in Schools-A Framework” in 2012. The NCERT has interwoven values of peace in the content and also incorporated them in the guidelines for teachers and teacher educators to highlight these values during transaction of content. NCERT has organized training programmes for the States Since-2005.

As implementation of school education is mainly in the domain of State Governments, the incorporation of the NCF-2005, value education guidelines of NCERT and gender sensitivity aspects have been done at their instance in the State Curriculum textbooks and teacher training modules.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has launched a Values Education Kit comprising of a revised “Handbook for Teachers”, a set of “Value Cards” and a “CD of Songs”. The Board has taken cognizance of the need to sensitize students about gender issues and has integrated gender sensitization with exiting subjects to optimize its impact. The Board had initiated a School Based Assessment scheme in the year 2009 which includes co-scholastic areas of Life-Skills, Attitude and Values, Sports and Games as well as co- curricular activities. The schools follow a cross curricular pedagogy involving all the major subjects to impart value education. The Board has also strengthened the Assessment by introducing a Values Based Question in major prescribed subjects in the Summative Assessments in classes IX-X and in the final examination in classes XI-XII from the year (2012-13).