Education Ministry Holds National Webinar on Early Childhood Care & Education

A webinar on Early Childhood Care and Education was organized by the Ministry of Education under the Shikshak Parv initiative to highlight the salient features of the New Education Policy (NEP 2020) on 25 Sep 2020. Ministry of Education organised Shikshak Parv from 8th September – 25th September 2020 to felicitate the teachers and to take New Education Policy 2020 forward.

The session on ECCE was moderated by Dr Romila Soni, Associate Professor, NCERT, Dr. Venita Kaul, Ambedkar University, Prof. Suniti Sanwal, NCERT and Shri Motilal Koirala, Principal, Govt Sr. Sec School, Kewzing, South district Sikkim.

Prof. Suniti initiated the discussion by explaining the recommendations of the National Education Policy 2020 with regard to ECCE. Continuing the talk, she spoke about the importance of nutrition in the early years of life right from the conception till the age of 2 years of a child. She further elaborated the relationship between nutrition, health and learning. The rapid development of the child in early 2 years of life was also explained at length. The speaker further emphasized that research studies show that in a child’s early years of life, nutrition is significantly linked to their health and academic performance in later years. 

Dr Kaul explained the focal areas for Implementation of NEP and further emphasized that developing socialising skills among children is important in addition to the development of academic skills at early stages. Advocacy at the community level and the parental role was highly emphasized in delivering quality ECCE. The importance of developmentally appropriate content and pedagogy was highlighted by the speaker through examples of joyful, play-based and interest-based activities for children. Dr. Kaul appreciated the NEP 2020 stating that the upward extension of the curriculum would be highly impactful for the smooth transition of children from pre-school to grade 1.

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Shri Motilal Koirala, Principal, Govt Sr. Sec School, Kewzing, South district of Sikkim, shared the innovations and activities under ECCE such as child Yoga to keep children active, fit and ready for learning. Sh. Koirala further informed that the children are provided toys, play equipment, books and print-rich classrooms in the school so that children indulge in learning activities in a playful manner. He further emphasized that these activities would help in attracting the children to the school thereby increasing the enrolment.

In his concluding remarks, Dr. Senapaty summarised the session’s proceedings and elaborated that the New Education Policy 2020 would help in enriching Indian culture that reflects the values to be inculcated from the stage of ECCE.