The National Credits Framework (NCrF) 

(Mains GS 2 : Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.)

Context:

• Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently unveiled the draft report on the National Credits Framework (NCrF) and invited nationwide public consultations and suggestions on the proposed educational credits system.

National Credits Framework:

• Academic credits are a recognition that a student/learner has completed a course or unit of learning that corresponds to a qualification at a given level and quantifies the outcomes of learning. 
• In a credit-based education system, a stipulated amount of credits based either on the number of hours of learning or student workload are required to progress from one level to another, subject to assessments such as examinations. For  example: 20 credits are required to complete a semester along with passing exams.
• The Credits Framework also aims to democratize education by enabling learners to earn credits not just through academic education or classroom learning but through co-curriculars, extracurriculars, vocational learning, online or distance learning, recognition of prior learning, and informal learning.

Umbrella Framework:

• While there is currently no established credit mechanism for regular school education in India, there is a credit system under the open schooling system and a Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) for higher education. 
• In order to “seamlessly integrate” the credits earned through school education, higher education and vocational & skill education, the Centre has drafted the National Credits Framework (NCrF) as an “inclusive umbrella Framework” under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Working of integrated credits system:

• The NCrF proposes the alignment of notional learning hours—the number of hours a student will spend to achieve a particular learning outcome across academic classes including preschool, school and higher education.
• It proposes that a learner, from class five to doctorate education, should spend 1200 notional learning hours every year in order to earn 40 credits, which, at the school level would mean 600 hours and 20 credits per semester. 
• From preschool up to grade 5, the learning hours would range from 800 to 1000 hours. From grade 5 onwards, 30 notional learning hours would be counted as one credit. 
• The learner would also be able to earn more than 40 credits in a year if they partake in any additional program/course beyond the prescribed 1200 learning hours or beyond the purview of the course syllabus.
• Based on the number of years of learning along with assessment, the NCrF prescribes eight credit levels in schooling till higher education. Under this framework, reaching grade 5 would mean the student is at credit level 1, grade 8 would be level 2, grade 10 level 3 and so on.

For vocational education:

• As for vocational education, training, and skilling, while the credit levels, learning hours and credits earned in a year remain the same, the forms of learning that nets credits changes. 
• For instance, at credit level 1 of vocational education, a learner without any formal education or prior experience would need to spend 150 to 210 hours in a short-term training programme [theory, practical, and on-the-job training (OTJ)] program or 600 hours in an apprenticeship program. 
• At level 3, a learner would need to be either in grade 9 of formal education or have passed grade 8 with one year of experience in that skill.

Importance of the NCrF:

• The NCrF aims to blur the lines or remove the “hard separation” between curricular, extracurricular, or co-curricular, among arts, commerce, and sciences, or between vocational or academic streams.
• The draft states that learning is a process that takes into account multiple dimensions of “cognitive, emotional, social and physical learning” and for holistic learning, students should be allowed to “choose subjects according to their interests irrespective of the nature of the course (academic or vocational)”. 
• For this purpose, it urges educational institutions or regulators to form new curricula that allow for actual choice-based multidisciplinary learning, where a student has the ability to design their own course structure. 
• For example, a learner in the science stream has the option of taking multiple humanities electives or courses and earning an equal number of credits.

Conclusion:

• The NCrF system supports educational acceleration for students with gifted learning abilities and recognition of prior learning for the workforce that has acquired knowledge and skills informally through traditional family inheritance, work experience or other methods.