BHUBANESWAR: Textbooks and teaching-learning materials for the foundation stage of new school structure - as mandated under National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 - will be released by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on the occasion of Saraswati Puja on January 26 this year.
This was announced by the Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan during the inauguration of the National Kala Utsav in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. He hoped that by the Saraswati Puja of 2024, the NCERT will be in a position to release the new curriculum, syllabus and textbooks of the next 15 years of school education.
Under NEP, the Ministry of Education has added a five-year foundational stage to school education and this comprises three years of preschool or Anganwadi education followed by two years of primary classes (classes 1 and 2).
On the occasion, the teachers’ guidebook for the foundation stage curriculum was released by the union minister. “Work on implementing the NEP in the country has been started by the NCERT with an aim of imbibing the 21st-century learning skills in students and Kala Utsav is an example of this,” said the union minister.
Stating that NEP speaks of universalisation of credits, he said that parents might think that art and craft events like these are a waste of time but in the days to come, participation in such events will help students earn credits which would be beneficial in their future careers. The 12-day festival is being hosted by NCERT.
Later in the day while speaking at the golden jubilee celebration of Utkal University’s physics department, Pradhan said the department has played a stellar role in global scientific development in the last five decades. It has the potential to contribute in a big way towards the growth of science and innovation in the country, he added.