The Foundation’s extensive work with the public education system provides us the unique opportunity to partner closely with the State departments to work on their curricula and teacher capacity development programmes. 

Our teams from across the field and the University participate and provide technical support to different State departments to develop ECE curricula and resources and participate in the in-service capacity development of early educators. 

The development of the curriculum and the training of teachers has been undertaken in the states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Puducherry. 

Work done in some States is provided as an illustration below: 

Karnataka

The Samagra Shikshana Karnataka (SSK) has envisioned and runs schools that offer K‑12 programme through the Karnataka Public Schools. The department undertook the task of developing mono-grade curriculum for 4 to 6 year old children. 

Our members were among the technical committee of the State for developing and translating the ChiliPili Plus curriculum being offered in the KPS pre-school classrooms, and more recently developing the Karnataka State Curriculum Framework for ECCE and Foundational Stage 2023. 

Our members also conduct teacher capacity development programmes as technical members of the state department along with other voluntary organisations of the State. 

Nagaland

Members of Azim Premji University have been consistently working with the SCERT team in Nagaland to develop an ECCE curriculum for the Nagaland state and train the core team to work with teachers. 

The curriculum focuses on providing experiences that are meaningful to children, fosters a sense of critical inquiry, and integrates learning in all domains of development (Physical, socio-emotional and ethical, cognitive, aesthetic and cultural, language and literacy) with care and compassion at its core. 

It has been developed with the vision of SCERT Nagaland to provide stimulating and contextualised experiences to children, the value that NEP 2020 and the NCF-FS 2022 have placed on preschool education, as well as the direction these documents have provided.

The curriculum will be available in form of three handbooks with details on perspectives and principles of development and learning, pedagogical processes, assessment, and learning experiences for children. The pilot testing is expected to begin by April 2023. 

Puducherry

Puducherry Department of School Education has been working towards creating a strong foundation for pre-primary education in the region through innovative approaches and collaborative efforts. 

The Foundation has been a consistent collaborative partner with the Department to support the pre-primary schools in a planned manner. The team has been focusing on teacher capacity building of pre-primary teachers through workshops on continuous professional development. 

In line with the NEP 2020, the Foundation team supported the teachers in redesigning the curriculum following a thematic approach, creating low-cost materials, developing resources that include teacher handbooks, developmentally appropriate activities for children and assessment plans. 

The team has also supported the Puducherry government in setting-up a model ECE resource centre cum playroom in one of the public schools.