The Curriculum Development Centre (CDC), established in 1971, is an apex body under the Ministry of Education and Sports for the development of education materials. The main objective of this Centre is to develop, implement, supervise and monitor the school curricula (School Level Curriculum Structure and Weightage), textbooks, and education materials. Likewise, it aims to increase the quality of education by contributing towards effective teaching learning activity through orientations and training programs. The CDC is committed for the betterment of Nepali education system by providing quality curricula, textbooks and other support materials. In order to make the curricula, textbooks and materials relevant and practical these are improved regularly based upon experiences and research findings. The CDC is located at Sanothimi, Bhaktapur.
Functions
The Curriculum Development Centre has following main functions:
Developing, revising and improving the school level curricula, textbooks and other support materials in a regular manner
Organizing seminars/workshops for curriculum improvement and textbooks dissemination
Conducting studies and surveys on issues and problems related to the aspects of school curricula
Preparing subject-wise handbooks for teachers
Monitoring of curriculum and textbooks implementations
Establishing relationship with other institutions, particularly with teachers and students on matters related to textbooks and curricula
Developing the Camera Ready Copies (CRC) of the scripts of the various educational materials
Distributing free of cost textbooks to all primary level school children
Selecting and listing reference materials
Providing support to teaching learning through extra-curricular activities
Besides these regular activities, the Centre is also carrying out following additional activities as part of the BPEP II programme:
Development of mother tongue curriculum and textbooks
Teachers' resource material development and distribution
Child supplementary readers and primary workbooks development and distribution
Establish and strengthen child library.
Introduction of Continuous Assessment System (CAS) and adoption of Liberal Promotion Policy for grade 1 to 3 (These are currently being piloted in five districts - Ilam, Chitwan, Syanja, Surkhet and Kanchanpur).
Likewise, in the context of Secondary Education Support Programme that has just been implemented, the CDC has following specific and additional tasks:
Developing a national curriculum framework for comprehensive school education
Renewal and revision of secondary curriculum and textbooks
Teachers' resource materials development and distribution
Development of examination and assessment system.
Organization structure
The Director General heads the CDC. It has two divisions - Primary and Secondary Curriculum Division and Non-Formal Education Division, each headed by a Director. Under the former division, there are seven different subject-wise units on language, science and math, social studies, health physiology and others, primary curriculum, vocational education, and pre-primary curriculum and under the latter, there are three sections on curriculum and teaching materials, training and supervision, and production and distribution. Besides these sections and units, there are four other sections related to editing and publication, administration, financial administration, and library and documentation and three units related to nutrition, population, and recognition and equivalency.
