NEW DELHI: Now, children of Class 1 and 2 will study Hindi from ‘Sarangi’, English from ‘Mridang’ and Maths from ‘Joyful Mathematics.’ These textbooks, released on Wednesday by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, are based on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
These books will soon be translated into other Indian languages and made available digitally on the NCERT website.
“These new generation textbooks have been developed based on the NEP-2020 and National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) 2022. Play is in the core of these textbooks, which will motivate children to learn with interest and joy,” Pradhan said at the 58th meeting of the General Council of NCERT, where the books were released.
Earlier, there were two English books; now, there is one. The maths books in Hindi have been named ‘Anadmay-Ganit.’
“These will be helpful in the holistic development of children and ensure joyful learning at the foundational stage, as envisaged by NEP-2020,” he added.
He further emphasised that teacher training is critical for achieving quality, and all the teachers at the foundational stage should be trained on a priority basis to equip them to transact the curriculum in schools successfully.
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The new generation textbooks in Hindi, English and Maths for Classes 1 and 2 were the first to be rolled out based on NCF-FS-22. Books from Class 3 to 12 will be rolled out by the next academic session.
NCERT Director Dinesh P Saklani said that with the release of Class-I and 2 books, the work of issuing text material for five classes of foundation level under the NEP has been completed.
The game-toy-based curriculum material 'Jadu ka pitara' or Magic Box for three classes up to Bal Vatika, i.e. Nursery, KG-1 and two, was released in February, which has 53 types of play-toys, posters, placards etc.
The draft curriculum for classes 3 to 12 has also been prepared, which will be made public in the next few weeks, officials said.
They said that soon after that, committees would be formed to decide the subject matter for each subject book.
The name of the previous NCERT Hindi language book for Class-1 and 2 was Rimjhim, the English language books were known as Marigold and Raindrop, and the mathematics book was called Maths Ka Jadoo.
Class-1 Rimjhim had 23 chapters, but now Class-1 Sarangi has 19 chapters, which are divided into five parts: Family, Living World, Our Food, Festivals and Fairs and Green World.
Famous poems like 'Chanda mama door ke','Murga bola kudu koon', and 'Wah mere ghode ki chaal' have been included in this book. There were 15 chapters in Rimjhim Hindi book of class-2, but there are 26 chapters in Sarangi.
In English, there were two books in class-I and II- Marigold and Raindrop.
There were ten units and 20 chapters in these, and 19 chapters were being taught in Raindrop Class-I and 15 chapters in Class-II, but now there is only one English book - Mridang.
There are nine chapters in Class-I and 13 in Class II related to four parts - Family and Me, Life Around Us, Food and Seasons.
The Magic of Maths, now named Joyful Maths, has 13 topics in Class-1 and 11 topics in Class-2.
