Jaadui Pitara in Foundational Stage-ECE-NCERT-NEP 2020
National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is one of the main pillars of the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP). NCF-Foundation Stage (NCF-FS) was released in October, 2022. NEP defines the Foundational Stage as a single curricular and pedagogical phase that comprises five years of flexible, multilevel, play and activity-based learning for children between 3 and 8 years of age. A symbol of the transformative nature of NCF-FS is NCERT’s Jaadai Pitara (Magic Box), launched along with related Digital Pitara on DIKSHA on 20th February, 2022 by the Hon’ble Minister of Education, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan.
Jaadui Pitara has been developed as an exemplar of content needed in any school for the Foundational Stage. It represents a wide range of useful content and demonstrates the sensibilities (age-appropriate, sensory experience and local) to be kept in mind while developing such content. The Pitara has toys, games, puzzles, puppets, posters, flashcards, story cards, story books, playbooks for students, and teacher handbooks.
The core transformative aspect of NCF-FS is ‘learn through play’. The NCF-FS describes how children at this stage learn best through play – through activity and doing. Children enjoy learning in several ways – talking, listening, using toys, working with material, painting, drawing, singing, dancing, running, and jumping.
