Cambridge’s new curriculum in sync with NEP 2020 – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Aligned to the National Education Policy 2020, UK-based Cambridge International introduces its new primary and lower secondary (age group five to 14) curriculum offering new subjects like art and design, digital literacy, physical education and music.

Earlier in February 2021, this international education Board which at present affiliates over 530 schools in India became the first education board to come up with a curriculum on early childhood education based on the NEP.

Apart from introduction of the new subjects, Cambridge International has also revised its core subjects – English, English as a second language, mathematics, science, global perspectives and information and communications technology (ICT).

The new changes are in sync with the NEP 2020, with a focus on skills. Speaking to the TOI, Abigail Barnett, deputy director, curriculum programmes, Cambridge International, said: “We’ve made quite a lot of changes, particularly to maths and science, because those are subjects that can go out of date. Because there’s always scientific research happening and thinking about maths. When we went back to look at those subjects, we realized that we wanted to have a stronger focus on the skills that you need in maths and science. So we’ve now got a new strand called thinking and working mathematically, and thinking and working scientifically. And both of those were really strong focus on skills. So it really helps the teacher to understand maths, it’s not just problem solving, you can break that down into more specific skills. And learners can understand what skills they need to use to solve certain problems. So we think that these subjects are now refreshed and up to date, and aligned with thinking around the world. For example, in India, with your new national education policy, there’s such a strong focus there on 21st century skills. So we think Cambridge can show how we’re very much aligned with that.”

According to Barnett, the key benefits of the revised programme includes equipping young students with the knowledge and skills they need to seamlessly transition and progress onto the next stage, the revised pathway can be used flexibly by schools – it can be used alongside national curricula or used on a subject-by-subject basis, students can start to develop skills for life like resilience, evaluation and problem solving and is based on the latest academic research and global best practice in primary and secondary school teaching and learning.

In the last five years, the number of Indian schools affiliated to Cambridge International have grown from 398 to 538. Barnett explained that through mapping and comparison, Cambridge International tries to understand the areas of similarity and “any things in the Indian curriculum that aren’t in the Cambridge curriculum, and vice versa.”

“then schools have a really good understanding of anything else that they need to include to meet their local requirements. So there’s enough flexibility to do that. But because, from what I’ve seen of the National Education Policy, I’m confident that we’ll be very well aligned with any changes we see in the Indian curriculum, because there’s such a strong focus on 21st-century skills,” added Barnett.

On the impact of Covid-19 on the curriculum, Barnett said that since a lot of the work had been done before the pandemic in 2019, it remained unaffected as its “about the concepts and skills that anybody needs”. However, what the Board did during the pandemic is to support the teachers and schools with materials that helped them to teach the curriculum during the lockdown. “We’ve been providing many more links to useful digital and online resources. But we’ve also had a strong emphasis on wellbeing, because we understand that the impact of young people not being able to socialize can have a very negative impact. So we’ve been giving lots of advice to schools and teachers about how you try and support learners when you’re not seeing them physically in the classroom.”