Keeping the objective of pre- school education in mind, the implementation of 'Nanhe Kadam Curriculum cum Handbook' has been proposed in as many as 38,432 Anganwadi centers and Balvatika of the State with the joint efforts of Child Development Department, School Education and Literacy Department and UNICEF.

The first 6 years of a child’s life are very important for development as it is at this stage that they start learning and understanding from their surrounding environment. The experiences gained by children during this period affect their physical, intellectual, emotional and social development and the foundation of good habits is also laid at this age. In such a situation, if meaningful experiences based on context and principles are given from the beginning, then the children develop holistically.

With this concept in mind, this curriculum includes activities which motivate the child’s eagerness to learn, increases their ability and gives them an open opportunity for holistic development.

Nanhe Kadam curriculum takes into account all the dimensions of all-round development of children in the age group 3 to 6 years, such as physical, mental, cognitive, linguistic, social and creative. Also, the activities of the curriculum are flexible, so that Anganwadi workers can bring innovation by looking at the needs of the children of their centers. In this child- centric curriculum, conversation along with creative problem solving by children has been encouraged.

Nanhe Kadam gives importance to the inherent abilities of children and provides them opportunities for development. Through the activities, the senses and body parts of children develop fully while various games are also included for cognitive development. Under Nanhe Kadam, children's linguistic development also takes place through conversation and communicative activities.

In this curriculum, the role of family, community and environment has also been enhanced for the development of children, so that they can have a positive and creative development before entering school.

Under the Nanhe Kadam curriculum cum handbook, theme based activities are scheduled every month. There is also a day wise syllabus for each week of every month.

In this, there are four hours of activities for five days every week while the sixth day is set for weekly revision. The sixth day will also have activities that were either left out in the curriculum or remained incomplete. Activities related to monthly revision will take place on the sixth day of the last week of the month.

The daily activities of this pre-school education curriculum are divided into two categories- general activities and theme based activities. General activities include welcome, health check-up, exercise, prayer, children's song, attendance and calendar activities whereas theme based activities focus on the linguistic, cognitive, creative and physical development of children.

To make the learning process interesting, joyful and inclusive, the activities which are given priority in Anganwadi include playing inside and outside, discussing and telling stories on interesting topics, drama, role play, group sports, group art performances, making expressions, painting, making utensils, toys and statues from clay, roaming around and observing as well as working on activity sheets.

Out of the six components of the New Education Policy and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services), pre-school education is an important component, through which a strong foundation is developed for further education of children. The process of developing the Nanhe Kadam curriculum has been done in a phased manner.

In the first phase, all the materials related to early childhood education were observed and studied, after which workshops were organised under the supervision of experienced experts at the national level in which Sevikas, Mahila Pariveshikas and Bal Pariyojna Adhikaris were included.

While preparing the curriculum, the new education policy, National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy (2013), National Curriculum Framework for Early Childhood Education and National Quality Standards were also kept in mind. During this, ECCE programs run in different states were also studied.

After observation by experts from NIPCCD and NCERT, the 'Nanhe Kadam Curriculum cum Handbook' was approved by the State Government on October 7, 2020.