Jammu, Aug 6: To strengthen the Government efforts on Early Childhood Care and Education as envisioned in National Education Policy 2020, National Development Foundation Jammu in collaboration with Directorate of Samagra Shiksha J&K & Directorate of School Education Jammu and in partnership with Unicef India organized the training of Education Facilitators of Jammu Division. These facilitators are engaged by National Development Foundation to deliver Pre-School Activity Books developed by the department of School Education J&K to 8000 children in all the 10 districts ofJammu Division. Jaswinder Kour Coordinator Divisional Resource Centre for Pre-Primary Education in Jammu and Dr. Sarita Sharma Assistant Coordinator Divisional Resource Centre for Pre-Primary Education in Jammu acted as Resource Persons and imparted training to the Facilitators. Rajiv Khajuria President & CEO National Development Foundation in his address called upon theEducation Facilitators that apart from delivering Pre-School Activity Books theyshall also facilitate the meeting of the School Management Committee and brief the concerned Corporator/Councilor or Sarpanch/Ward Member about the delivery of books in their area to ensure community participation and engagement with the school for strengthening ECCE component as enshrined in NEP 2020.

He informed that National Development Foundation will reach out to 8000 children by providing them Pre-School Activity Books in the school setup and will raise awareness among the School Management Committees of the 5 schools in each district of Jammu Division. Mr. Khajuria complimented the efforts of the School Education Department particularly Samagra Shiksha for recently carrying out Talash Survey to identify and mainstream Out of School Children in which NDF also contributed in the jurisdiction of Jammu Municipal Corporation and Srinagar Municipal Corporation. Terming Talash Survey as a historic step of the School Education Department to mainstream the Out of School Children he pined hope that the identified Out of School Children are in the process of mainstreaming by the nearby heads of institutions i.e. Government Schools in an age appropriate manner.