Chandigarh July 15: Reiterating its commitment to provide quality education and learning among children aged between 3 to 6 years, Haryana Government is all set to open 1,000 playway schools as per the Budget announcement made by the Chief Minister, Mr. Manohar Lal as Finance Minister on February 28, 2020.
A decision to this regard was taken in a meeting presided over by Haryana Chief Minister, Mr. Manohar Lal while reviewing the work of pre-school held here today. Education Minister, Mr. Kanwar Pal was also present on this occasion.
Directing the officers to upgrade Anganwadi Centers which are currently running inside the premises of primary schools into smart learning playways, the Chief Minister said that the curriculum of these schools should be designed in the form of animations and audio-visuals to help children enhance their cognitive learning.
He said that the findings of Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) 2019 titled 'Early Years' has highlighted the fact that the first 1000 days of a child’s life are key dimensions of schooling and learning that potentially shape their future pathways. The ASER data shows that children's performance on tasks requiring cognitive skills is strongly related to their ability to do early language tasks and early numeracy tasks. This suggests that focusing on play-based activities that build memory, reasoning, and problem-solving abilities is more productive than an early focus on content knowledge, he said.
The Chief Minister said that therefore understanding the need to strongly encourage play-based activities that develop cognitive abilities in pre-school years, 1000 smart playways schools would be opened. He said that the quality of education should be improved and for this highly qualified worker, working in the Anganwadi Centres should be engaged in these play way schools.
He said that a nominal fee of Rs 100 should be charged from the students who enroll in these play way schools. He said that some concessions should be kept for the students belonging to ST/SC category students. Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Mr. Rajesh Khullar, Additional Chief Secretary, Science and Technology Department, Mr. Amit Jha, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance, and Planning Departments, Mr. T.V.S.N. Prasad, Additional Chief Secretary, School Education Department, Mr. Mahavir Singh, Deputy Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Mrs. Ashima Brar, and Director, Secondary Education, Mr. J. Ganesan were also present on this occasion.