Consultative meeting on Balvatika and Jadui Pitara held at LFI

DIMAPUR — A one day consultative meeting on Balvatika and Jadui Pitara was conducted for CBSE schools of the state at Livingstone Foundation International (LFI) on Friday.

An update from LFI stated that the one-day meet was conducted as a part of CBSE initiative to create awareness on various facets of the national curriculum frameworks foundational stage (NCF-FS), which is one of the most important elements as enshrined under the New Education Policy for the foundational stage (3-6 years of age).

The meeting was conducted in a hybrid mode where the participants from various CBSE affiliated schools from Nagaland attended both the offline mode as well as the online mode.

The offline meet held at LFI auditorium was led by Anurodh Chitra, principal of Delhi Public School, Dimapur, while the online mode was conducted simultaneously with the offline mode led by resource persons from both NCERT and CBSE.

It stated that the meeting mainly focused on some key aspects of foundational stage including strengthening of Balvatika in schools, Jadui Pitara as a tool for learning at foundational stage, benchmarking of state specific material related to Jadui Pitara and SCF, e-Jadui Pitara, curricular goals and learning outcomes under the NCF-FS, imparting knowledge about pedagogies as recommended in the NCF for foundational stage, to work on CBSE centre of excellence (CoE) specific customisation of Jadui Pitara, to share assessment practices as recommended by NCF for foundational stage and to share information about capacity building programme on NCF-FS offered by CBSE.

The meeting was also marked by demonstrations on online access and utilisation of resources through Jadui Pitara and e-Jadui Pitara and also a better perspective of the Balvatika and the CBSE affiliation bye-laws.

It mentioned that Jadui Pitara is a wonderful educational tool which can be accessed by users in two different modes.

In the offline mode, users are given printed materials in the form of activity sheets and hands-on materials like toys, songs, stories, puppets, games etc., which make learning easier and interesting, while the online platform, also known as e-jadui pitara app, gives users easy access to resources for teaching and learning, it stated.

According to the resource person, Balvatika is another form of anganwadi. It was designed as a preparatory class for children before Grade-I with a focus on developing cognitive, affective and psychomotor abilities through learning by fun classes. It plays a dominant role in holistic development of a child.

Earlier, the chairman of Livingstone Foundation International, Dr. Andrew Ahoto Sema, shared positive opinion about the meeting and expressed his gratitude to all the participants from various CBSE schools for making the programme a success.

It further stated that the director of All India Private Schools’ Alliance (AIPSA), Shiju Augustine, shared about collaborative efforts of all schools through Nagaland Schools’ Alliance (NSA) in enhancing a host of facilities and positive privileges for the staff and management of schools as a whole.

A total of 54 participants from more than 20 CBSE schools across the state attended the meet.