BHUBANESWAR: SISHU Vatikas will start functioning in every government school from the current academic session of 2025-26, which begins on April 2.
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. The School and Mass Education department on Wednesday informed that the Sishu Vatikas will function with the existing infrastructure and manpower, and one teacher from each primary school has been trained to take the Sishu Vatika class in every school.
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). This apart, the state government has also planned to introduce new books for students of Class 1 to VIII from the next academic session of 2026-27.
The department will organise ‘Pravesh Utsav’ and ‘Khadi Chuan’ for Class I and Sishu Vatikas on April 2 across all its schools to welcome the new students, officials of the department said. Currently, invitation letters signed by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi are being distributed by the district administrations to parents of all children who are eligible to take admission to Sishu Vatikas.
Under the NEP, the department also plans to bring out new books for students of primary to elementary grades in government schools, which will be prepared by NCERT as per the National Curriculum Framework.
Both Sishu Vatikas and the new books are two of the measures suggested by a high-level task force that was formed by the state government to implement NEP-2020 both for school and higher education in Odisha. Subsequently, the state government constituted a state steering committee to develop the new state curriculum framework. Formation of a state-level committee for review of syllabus and textbooks is under active consideration of the government, officials added.