Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Akhil Bhartiya Shiksha Samagam at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on Saturday. The inauguration coincided with the third anniversary of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. PM Modi also viewed the exhibition showcased on the occasion. At the exhibition, he interacted with a group of young kids, who appeared to be four to five years old. It wasn’t long before PM Modi shared a clip of his interaction with the children. In the video, the kids are seen greeting him enthusiastically and telling him that they have seen him on television. PM Modi then asks the children to show him what they were doing and proceeds to watch as the little ones paint and play educational games. At the end of the clip, a child requests to take a picture with the Prime Minister and he obliges. It appears that the kids were at a stall set up to showcase the initiative of ‘Balvatika’, a one-year preparatory programme introduced as part of NEP 2020. As per the policy, kids younger than the age of five are required to attend a Balvatika before they enrol in Class 1 so that they can develop “cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities” and also achieve “early literacy and numeracy” through a play-based approach.
