Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government is set to start admission for ‘Sishu Vatikas’ at primary schools in the state from next academic session.
Sharing this information on Tuesday, School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond said that the Sishu Vatika admission will be opened for children at age of 3 years under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
He said the new system will be implemented in around 45,000 primary schools from the coming academic session and the department is fully prepared for execution of the Sishu Vatika programme.
Regarding allocation made for elementary education in the state Budget for 2025-26, the Minister said the state government has allocated over Rs 31,000 crore for school education.
Chief Minister Mohan Majhi in his speech during presentation of the annual budget on Monday said that the state government has decided to roll out NEP-2020 from the academic session 2025-26. More than 45,000 primary classes called Sishu Vatika will be opened in all primary schools.
Sources said there will be Sishu Vatika education under NEP that will cover 5 years (Sishu Vatika 1,2,3, Class 1 and 2 and Middle and Secondary stages (Class 4,5,6,7,8) in schools. While Class 4 and 5 comes under preparatory stage, Class 6,7,8 have been classified under Middle stage. The minimum age for admission into Class 1 will be 6 years and Sishu Vatika at 3 years.
In addition, the budget proposed to provide Rs 2960 crore under Godabarisha Mishra Adarsha Prathamik Vidyalaya, which is an ambitious initiative of the government to establish holistic learning centres at Panchayat level. Under the scheme, around 7,000 elementary schools will be upgraded and equipped with advanced infrastructure, learning resources and life skills education to develop children’s linguistic and arithmetic skills, preparing them for higher education, the sources added.
