Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Launches Learning-Teaching Materials For Foundational Stage

Bhubaneswar: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday launched learning and teaching materials for Foundational stage as envisaged under National Education Policy 2020 in New Delhi.

Releasing ‘Jadui Pitara’, a play-based learning-teaching material for children in the age group of 3-8 years, Pradhan said it comprises playbooks, toys, puzzles, posters, flash cards, story books and worksheets. Reflecting the local culture, social context and languages, the material is designed to pique curiosity and accommodate the diverse needs of learners in the foundational stage, he added.

“Jadui Pitara, developed under the National Curriculum Framework, is available in 13 Indian languages. It is a giant leap towards enriching the learning-teaching environment and making it more child-centric, lively and joyful for the Amrit Generation as envisioned in the NEP 2020,” he said.

The Union Minister said NCERT as a national think-tank must leverage technology to translate the materials in the ‘Jadui Pitara’ in all Indian languages and endeavour to expand its reach and make it available to all SCERTs. These resources should be made digitally available on DIKSHA platform – portal and mobile app.

The National Education Policy 2020 envisages 5+3+3+4 curriculum pedagogical structure. The Department of School Education & Literacy under Ministry of Education has constituted a National Steering Committee headed by Prof K Kasturirangan to develop the National Curriculum Framework for each stage.

The NCF for foundational stage (FS) was launched by the Ministry on October 20, 2022 and as per the curriculum framework, NCERT has developed and collected Learning Teaching Material (LTM). Accordingly, “Learning Teaching Material” for foundational stage was launched using the concept of “Jaadui Pitara”.

Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi; Sanjay Kumar, secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy; Prof Dinesh Prasad Saklani, Director, NCERT and Prof Sridhar Srivastava, Joint Director, NCERT were present.