Development of Design Education Curriculum for Grade 5 Indian CBSE Schools to Facilitate 21st Century Skills

Design Education is rapidly growing as one of the means to achieve 21st Century Skills and is argued for integration in school education, beginning from early years of learning. While international education reforms explore these possibilities across primary school classrooms, Government of India expresses the need for educational reforms in schools towards this direction. This prompts the study to develop a curriculum for Basic Design Education at Primary School level in India. Literature review on Basic Design Curriculum informs learning of Form as one of its key components. Methods of Literature Review and Expert Panel Review are adopted to develop and validate the curriculum. The paper details the rationale; process and outcome of the first ever ‘Form in Design’ subject for Indian Primary Education. The study is further planned for classroom implementation and validation. The aim of discussing this detailed process is to encourage the practice of curriculum development of other subjects in Design suitable for school education. This research embarks the preliminary steps towards generating empirical evidence of implementing Design Education in Indian primary classrooms to facilitate 21st Century Skills.