Observing silent, smooth and striated space: The case of Indian national curriculum policy 2009

Abstract

The paper employs the assemblage approach to unfold India’s 2009 education policy, the National Curriculum Framework, in order to uncover its multiple international, national or other links. In doing so, a deconstruction approach (as strategy, not as rationale) is applied, in order to uncover the policy text and what is identified as a construction and reconstruction of meaning. The contested notion of student-centred learning and its perspective is proposed as a solution to deal with the professionalism problem of Indian teachers and the criteria to develop teachers’ professional skills are closely analysed. As a result, it is not only student-centred learning that is apprised to be part of the National Curriculum Framework, but also its multiple versions, linked to local and global policy studies. In turn, this highlights the complicated nature of the policy. The multifaceted and manifold versions of student-centred learning are further unfolded through the assemblage rationale. Silent spaces (e.g. teachers’ voices, teaching evaluation methods, etc.) are observed in the policy text to accommodate the emergence of student-centred learning.