NEW DELHI: The biggest exercise in school education reforms — a review of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) — will start soon, according to the National Council of Educational Research Training.Hrushikesh Senapaty, director, NCERT , confirmed to TOI in an exclusive interaction on Thursday that the preliminary work on the review of the last NCF, published in 2005, has begun and the committee to undertake the task will be formed shortly.NCF provides the framework for creation of the school syllabi and the writing of textbooks, while giving guidelines on teaching practices in India. Of the four NCFs released in 1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005, the last removed the focus from teachers to students to ensure ‘learning without burden’.To further that objective, there has been a continuing process in recent years of rationalising books and subject matter. “The work we have done on rationalisation of textbooks will form the basis of the review of the 2005 NCF,” said Senapaty. “Society needs a change and our focus will, therefore, be on experiential learning. This will further take forward the shift of focus of 15 years ago from teachers to the student to promote learning without burden and to change the tendency to learning by rote.”According to government sources, the exercise will be officially announced after the results of the general elections and the committee will be put in place soon. “As part of the 2018 rationalisation of textbooks, 72,000 stakeholders, among them students, teachers, parents, intellectuals and members of civil society, gave us over one lakh suggestions,” Senapaty revealed. “These were critically analysed and will form the foundation of the forthcoming deliberations on a fresh NCF. It will be a year-long process.”In keeping with the reforms, NCERT is also planning a mammoth training programme for 42 lakh government elementary school teachers by December 2019. The council had already conducted a pilot run in Tripura , where it trained 31,000 teachers over three-four months with the help of 284 key resource persons.“The training is aimed at improving the learning outcomes. From the National Achievement Survey (NAS) of 2017, we have seen learning outcomes declining as we reach higher classes,” explained Senapaty. “NAS has given us district-wise data and this will allow us to see how to improve the quality of teaching at the micro level, while aiding us in implementing our curriculum effectively.”The exercise in 2005 was undertaken by a committee headed by Professor Yashpal, former chairperson of University Grants Commission. That document took into consideration the government reports on education that encouraged making learning a joyful experience. Other paradigms were the National Policy of Education 1986-1992 and the recommendations in the position papers of the 21 National Focus Groups, each tasked with producing a research-based paper providing a comprehensive review of existing knowledge and the field reality, especially in rural schools.