– PreetiKwatra, Founder & Director Petals India’s Preschool Club

The National Education Policy is very promising and futuristic which takes into the consideration that the first 1000 days are very crucial for the child. So, the right kind of early childhood environment is very important for each child. The gap between the current state of learning outcomes and what is required must be bridged through undertaking major reforms that bring the highest quality, equity, and integrity into the system, right from early childhood care and education through higher education.

Currently, children in the age group of 3-6 are not covered in the 10+2 structure as Class 1 begins at age 6. The new national educational policy has given 5+3+3+4 structure, a strong base of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) from age 3 is also included, which will surely help in promoting better overall learning, development, and well-being.

ECCE ideally consists of flexible, multi-faceted, multi-level, play-based, activity-based, and inquiry-based learning, comprising of alphabets, languages, numbers, counting, colours, shapes, indoor and outdoor play, puzzles and logical thinking, problem-solving, drawing, painting and other visual art, craft, drama and puppetry, music and movement. It also includes a focus on developing social capacities, sensitivity, good behaviour, courtesy, ethics, personal and public cleanliness, teamwork, and cooperation. The overall aim of ECCE will be to attain optimal outcomes in the domains of: physical and motor development, cognitive development, socio-emotional-ethical development, cultural/artistic development, and the development of communication and early language, literacy, and numeracy.

The overarching goal of the National Educational Policy 2020 is to ensure universal access to high-quality ECCE across the country. The best part is that the Policy aims to include each child, irrespective of the location, who is particularly socio-economically disadvantaged.

The emphasis on ECCE teacher training whether for Anganwadis or preschool teacher in accordance with the curricular/pedagogical framework developed by NCERT, provides a great impetus to the teachers, mentioningthe different mediums like digital/DTH to train them.

The policy reflects onthe dearth of professionally trained teachers at different levels which is one of the main causes of low quality in ECCE and large pupil to teacher ratio or high rates of illiteracy. Hence, it tries to cover up the gap by filling up teacher vacancies at the earliest.

On the curriculum side, there will be an increased focus on foundational literacy and numeracy – and generally, on reading, writing, speaking, counting, arithmetic, and mathematical thinking – throughout the preparatory phase.
Currently, with the lack of universal access to ECCE, a large proportion of children already fall behind within the first few weeks of Grade 1. The Policy also aims to ensure that all students are school-ready, an interim 3-month play-based ‘school preparation module’ for all Grade 1 students, consisting of activities and workbooks around the learning of alphabets, sounds, words, colours, shapes, and numbers, involving collaborations with peers and parents, which will be developed by NCERT and SCERTs. The New Education Policy has really tried well to address the needs of the 21st century and tries to create a student-friendly environment in schools and colleges, for their holistic development. All in all, it is a progressive and visionary policy and its success will be directly proportional to its implementation and execution, practically.

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