How to Read the NCF-SE
The National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) is best read from the beginning to the end — the entire volume. This is because the NCF-SE is an integrated framework where each part has implications on the other.
However, if there is a need to be selective, then it is recommended that Part A must be read along with whatever may be the matter of interest from the subsequent parts. This is because Part A lays the foundations of the NCF-SE.
For example — if a Science Teacher wants to focus only on her subject, she should read the entirety of Part A and then the chapter on Science Education in Part C. Education Administrators may want to focus on School Culture and Practices which is in Part D and on Creating an Enabling Ecosystem which is in Part E, but these must be read along with the entirety of Part A.
Curriculum and syllabus developers must read the entire volume, while content developers may adopt the approach as mentioned for Teachers and administrators above.
Other interested stakeholders of the education system may read the summary and then the chapters of their interest; however, even for them, glancing through Part A would be useful
It is also important to keep in mind that the NCF-SE has many illustrations. These have been used to bring to life the principles and approach of the NCF-SE for the practitioner. The user of this NCF-SE is certainly not bound in any way by these illustrations. Similarly, the level of detail articulated in this NCF-SE is to bring clarity to the principles and approach in the reality of practice, and not to be prescriptive in any manner.
Since the explicit objective of this NCF-SE is to help improve the practice of education in the reality of our schools, it has attempted to be as relatable as possible to the practitioner — by the use of illustrations, by going into details, and other methods. It is this choice that has made this volume fairly lengthy.
An Artificial Intelligence-based virtual assistant has been trained to help users navigate through the NCF-SE and which surely will continue to improve.
A caution: the one thing that people who work in education, from Teachers to the highest-level administrators, must not do is to read just the summary and think that the NCF-SE is read.