BHUBANESWAR : A 5-year-old child in private school fares better in learning than those in government schools and anganwadis, points out the annual status of education report (ASER) of 2020. In rural Odisha, the cognitive skills acquired by children (till 6 years of age) largely depends on the type of training they get at home and anganwadis, it adds.
In the absence of age-specific books in Odia, anganwadis in the State have a long way to go in improving early learning among children, but the Koraput administration and Bhubaneswar-based Bakul Foundation have initiated a beginning.
The foundation has curated child-friendly interactive Odia books that would be distributed among 30,000 children in all anganwadi centres by the district administration for improving their cognitive and learning skills. Titled ‘Mo Bahi Gadi’, the big book is a combination of five illustrated books - ‘Mu Kie?’, ‘Janicha Ki?’, ‘Pimpudi O Para’, ‘Ek Dui Teen’ and ‘Upara Tala’. “Unlike pre-school books in English which are more like catalogues of animals, vegetables, colours, numbers; these Odia books are engaging for children”, said founder of Bakul Sujit Mohapatra. The books are based on learning outcomes defined in ‘Nua Arunima’, a guidebook for anganwadi workers.
Bakul, which has been instrumental in setting up libraries for children in the State, started publishing in 2017 with books on popular Odia nursery rhymes. For its flagship library in Satyanagar here, it sourced creative and interactive books for children from across the world. “But then we realised that there are very few children’s books in Odia and there are hardly any books for children in early grades. Small children need attractive books with good production quality and beautiful pictures to make them want to pick up the books. Moreover, publishing for small children is not just about writing books, it is science in itself”, he says, adding that Bakul volunteers felt the need to create picture books for early learners in Odia drawing on their learnings from the best picture books in the world.
Two years later, the foundation with the help of UNICEF published six books that were provided in 300 anganwadi centres in Puri. Some of the books that were publicised by the foundation on social media caught the attention of the Koraput administration. “The administration asked us if we can make one omnibus comprising our books for anganwadis, as they wanted to give the books to every child in anganwadis in the district. So, we restructured five of our books that were meant for children in anganwadis and published them as an omnibus”, says Mohapatra.
Naming it ‘Mo Bahi Gadi’, Mohapatra said the cover was designed as a train with various bogies and each bogie had the cover of each book contained inside the big book. Bakul ensured that interactive elements are central to all the five books. Koraput administration’s idea of providing Odia books to preschoolers and Bakul’s unique curation was appreciated by Niti Aayog, the public policy think tank of the Government of India, recently.
When Koraput administration decided to provide Odia books to children in anganwadi centres, Bakul Foundation came up with an engaging ‘Mo Bahi Gadi’ to help them learn and improve their cognitive skills. This collaboration has earned praise from Niti Aayog. Diana Sahu finds out more