By Asha Sharma
Principal
Indian Learners’ Own Academy, Kuwait
As per India’s New Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) school curriculum and pedagogy have been divided into a 5+3+3+4 design corresponding to the age ranges of 3-8, 8-11, 11-14, and 14-18 years, respectively.
The Foundational Stage will comprise five years of flexible, multilevel, play-based, activity-based, and discovery-based learning, continuously incorporating the latest research in early childhood care and education (ECCE), as well as the various time tested Indian traditions for cognitive and emotional stimulation of children. The present Policy begins with viewing ECCE as a part of the Foundational stage of school education (three years of pre-primary education and Grades 1 and 2), a single curricular and pedagogical phase of play- and discovery-based learning for very young children, between the ages of 3-8 years .
The preparatory stage
Objective: By 2025, every student in Grade 5 and beyond has achieved foundational literacy and numeracy.
The Preparatory Stage will comprise three years of education (classes 3, 4 and 5) building on the play-, discovery-, and activity-based pedagogical and curricular style of teaching and learning. Attaining foundational literacy and numeracy for all children must become an immediate national mission. It will incorporate textbooks as well as aspects of more formal classroom learning.
The aim of this stage will be to lay the general foundation across subjects, including reading, writing, speaking, physical education, art, languages, science, and mathematics, so that students are prepared to delve deeper into learning areas through specialized subjects and subject teachers in the stages that follow.
Focus in school is on foundational literacy and numeracy: The school and classroom curriculum and schedules for Grades 1-5 will be redesigned to focus on foundational literacy and numeracy, and to build a love for reading and mathematics among students. The ability to read and write, and to perform basic operations with numbers, is a necessary foundation and indispensable prerequisite for all future school and lifelong learning.
If students are given a solid foundation in reading, writing, speaking, counting, arithmetic, mathematical and logical thinking, problem-solving, and in being creative, then all other future lifelong learning will become that much easier, faster, more enjoyable, and more individualized; all curriculum and pedagogy in early grade school would be designed with this principle in mind.
Teacher capacity also plays a central role in the attainment of foundational skills. Currently, few teachers have the opportunity to be trained in a multilevel, play-based, student-centered style of teaching and learning process. According to extensive ECCE research, students in Grades 1 and 2 naturally learn at different levels and paces during their early school years. However, the current formal system assumes from the very beginning a common level and pace for all, because of which many students start to fall behind almost immediately.
Dedicated mathematics and reading hours every day for Grades 1, 2 and 3, and an additional writing hour for Grades 4 and 5 have been suggested. Designated ‘language weeks’ and ‘mathematics weeks’ during the school year, where children will participate in a variety of activities and projects around languages and mathematics will make the learning effective.
Regular ‘language melas’ and ‘mathematics melas’, where children can participate and demonstrate their abilities in both of these subjects could become a community event involving parents, teachers, community members, and neighboring schools; Weekly language and mathematics-focused school assemblies; celebrations of writers’ and mathematicians’ anniversaries through language- and mathematics-related activities; Weekly activities around the library, such as story-telling, theatre, group reading, writing, and display of original writings and other art by children; Weekly fun puzzle-solving sessions that naturally inculcate logical and mathematical thinking. Regular activities that explore connections between ‘classroom mathematics’ and ‘real-life mathematics’ will impact learning and make it deeper.
Workbooks on language and mathematics: Every child in Grades 1-5 will have a workbook for languages and mathematics in addition to the school textbook. This will ensure that grade-appropriate, creative, and engaging practice opportunities for each child to work at his/her own pace. This would supplement the textbook, build on lessons with a variety of exercises/examples, save teachers’ time, help teachers identify what each child can do and, therefore, would help individualize instruction.
National repository of language and mathematics resources: The National Teacher’s Portal (DIKSHA) will have a special section of high-quality resources on foundational literacy and numeracy including creation of digital libraries. These resources will be collated from across the country and will be used. Unfortunately, these resources are not available in Kuwait due to cyber security reasons.
National Peer Tutors Programme: A National Tutors Programme (NTP) will be instituted, where the best performers in each school will be drawn in the programme for up to five hours a week as tutors during the school for fellow (generally younger) students who need help. Selecting tutors from under-represented-groups (URGs) whenever possible will be particularly encouraged. Being selected as a peer tutor will be considered a prestigious position, earning a certificate from the State each year that indicates the hours of service.
Remedial Instructional Aides Programme: A Remedial Instructional Aides Programme (RIAP) will be instituted initially as a temporary 10-year project to draw instructors, especially women, from local communities to formally help students who have fallen behind and bring them back into the fold. These instructional aides (IA) would hold special remediation classes during school hours, after school hours, and during the summer for those children who have fallen so behind that they cannot catch up without an intervention; when possible, these children would be grouped by level and pace. The IAs would be drawn from among those in the local communities who have graduated from Grade 12 who have been among the good performers in their schools. The Policy also notes that technology can be an effective tool in facilitating teacher education and encourages the utilization of technology platforms for online teacher-training.
Encouragement of large-scale community and volunteer involvement: Qualified volunteers (such as retired teachers and army officers, excellent students from neighboring schools, and passionate socially-conscious college graduates from across the country) will also be drawn on a large scale to join the NTP and the RIAP on an unpaid basis, during the academic year as well as in the summer, as a service to their communities and to the country. It will be the responsibility of the teachers to assess the learning levels of each student in class, and to identify those students who would make excellent tutors, as well as those students who could benefit from NTP tutors and RIAP remedial sessions.
Regular adaptive assessment: A robust system of adaptive assessment will be developed and implemented at all levels in schools, in order to help teachers regularly evaluate each student’s progress, and identify where each student is on the learning-ladder continuum, and thus provide accurate feedback and individualized learning plans for students. Adaptive assessments will also help minimize the importance of rote memory in examinations. Computer-based adaptive assessment may first be implemented in secondary schools and, eventually, by 2023, with computers or tablets available in all schools, extended to cover every student in every school at the basic level and beyond as needed.