BHUBANESWAR: To strengthen pre-school education in the state, the Odisha government has decided to open over 45,000 pre-primary classes called Sishu Vatikas at all government-run primary schools in the new academic year of 2025-26. This will mark the launch of National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 at school level in the state.
Officials of the School and Mass Education department said while children in the age group of five to six years will be admitted to the Sishu Vatikas, those aged three to five years will continue their education in anganwadi centres, as per existing practice.
There are 45,042 government schools with primary grades in the state. According to the UIDSE+ report 2023-24 of the Ministry of Education, of these 45,042 schools, 21,124 have anganwadi centres on their campuses and only 759 schools have pre-primary sections. Also, 602 government schools have both anganwadi centres and pre-primary sections. Similarly, there are 18.08 lakh children in the three to six years age group in around 71,000 anganwadi centres.
The existing teachers and infrastructure in primary schools will be used to operationalise Sishu Vatikas in the new session. Officials said SCERT and OSEPA in collaboration with the Regional Institute of Education (RIE), Bhubaneswar are training primary school teachers to impart pre-school education to children in the age group of five to six years in Sishu Vatika classes. SCERT and OSEPA will also help the School and Mass Education department in development of teaching materials for teachers and workbooks for the preschoolers.
Sources said subsequently, plans will be drawn to provide additional infrastructure and manpower in primary schools in a phased manner over the coming four years, by provisioning the same through Samagra Sikshya and state budget.
Sishu Vatika is the regional adaptation of the Education Ministry’s Bal Vatika concept. While the existing education system has two years of pre-schooling, the NEP-2020 mandates three years of pre-school. On Monday, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi proposed a budget of `31,000 crore for school education, a majority of which will be used for implementation of NEP at school level.