With the National Education Policy (NEP) introducing pre-primary education, stand-alone nursery and kindergarten (KG) schools may find it difficult to thrive. Prior to the NEP, pre-primary education was not part of the school system which allowed the opening of such schools in numerous locations.
A CBSE school principal from Nagpur said that the government has grouped nursery, kindergarten (KG), Std I and II into one category that requires an integrated learning approach with fixed objectives. Thus, schools that already have their own pre-primary sections will be more suitable to manage the academic part while those that do not have that option must start from Std I.
This will cause parents to prefer the integrated schools over the stand-alone ones. The principal also noted that these stand-alone kindergartens may not be able to expand as they lack the sufficient space to do so, rendering any expansion effort difficult.
The importance of the NEP for pre-primary education is tremendous. It has set specific learning standards for the age groups involved which merely wasn’t the case before. Furthermore, it provides the opportunity for integrated schools to formulate their lesson plans according to the guidelines. All in all, it provides the children with clear objectives and learning outcomes, leveling the educational playing field for all.
