Bhubaneswar, Apr 2: With an aim to provide pre-school education for children aged five and above, the Odisha government Wednesday launched the ‘Shishu Vatika’ initiative across the State.

A grand event was organised at Badagada High School in Bhubaneswar, where Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Education Minister Nityananda Gond graced the occasion.

Special programs such as the ‘Pravesh Utsav’ and ‘Khadi Chuan’ were organised for Class I and Shishu Vatika students.

As per the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 mandate, the Sishu Vatikas will provide preschool education to children in the age group of five to six years.

For the purpose, handbook for teachers and workbooks for pre-primary students have been developed by the Directorate Of Teacher Education and State Council Of Educational Research & Training (TE&SCERT).

One of the most important changes NEP aims to bring to the school education system is the transition from the exam-centric 10+2 schooling design to the new 5+3+3+4 pedagogical structure which comprises 12 years of school and 3 years of pre-schooling. The new structure focuses on age-specific learning and evaluation.

According to the Ministry of Education, schooling will be divided into four stages based on age-specific learning - foundational stage for ages 3 to 8, preparatory stage for ages 8 to 11, middle stage for ages 11 to 14, and secondary stage for ages 14 to 18.

Students will spend five years in the foundational, three years in the preparatory, three years in the middle, and the final four years in the secondary stages.

The five years of foundational learning will start from anganwadi (pre-school) and continue till Class 2 which will mostly be activity-based learning. The three years of preparatory stage will be from Class 3 to 5 which will focus on language and numeracy skills.

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