With the beginning of the upcoming academic year 2024–25, only children who are three years old will be granted admission to the nursery, said senior state officials, as reported by the Times Of India. This regulation is presently undergoing finalisation. It will ensure that admission norms in Maharashtra are in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The policy mandates that a child must be six years old before joining Class 1.
School admissions to nurseries have already started, but educationists are hoping that the revised policy will be followed for the academic year 2024-25. Some educationists have been protesting against the practice of enrolling children as young as 30 months (or 2.5 years) in nursery school in some schools.
Informing about the new age policy, state director (primary education) Sharad Gosavi stated, “We are working on a new age policy for admission. We will soon declare it, and it will be applicable for the academic year 2024-25.”
He further informed that the age criteria are being revised to ensure that children are three years old when they begin school. “The new policy is being drawn up in collaboration with the women and child development ministry, which handles the Anganwadi,” added Gosavi.
In addition to that, the Early Childhood Association (ECA) had written to Governor Ramesh Bais, seeking his intervention to request the state government to announce the minimum age for entering kindergarten as three years. On the lines of NE, the Early Childhood Association members said that Maharashtra is one of the few states that have not yet altered the admission age, thereby enabling many children to reach grade 1 at the age of 5 or 5.2 years.
According to the existing Maharashtra government resolution, a newly enrolled child should complete three years of school by December 31 of that particular year. ECA president Swati Popat Vats said, “As schools begin in the month of April or June, children are 2.5 years old when they start nursery and 5.5 when they are in grade one.”
Principal of Somaiya School, Parveen Shaikh, said the entry age is getting younger. Children who ought to be in a playgroup are in nursery school. “There are examples from around the world about children joining school at an older age and that joining early is doing well to no one. Moreover, there has to be an alignment between what the state says and what is recommended in National Education Policy. Older children whose minds are more developed are more ready to be at a new place, understand the teacher, and connect with what is being taught.”
Comments
0 comment