Nursery and kindergarten classes on Tuesday commenced in all Government primary schools of Punjab for children in the age group of three to six years.
Named as ‘Khed Mahal’, the classes’ duration would be three hours and everything would be free of cost, said the state Education Minister Aruna Chaudhary while formally launching the initiative at a Government elementary school in Mohali.
“Today is a red letter day and Punjab has taken the lead in terms of shaping well the future of the nation, that is children, by becoming the first state in the country to take this one of its kind novel initiative heralding a new dawn,” she said.
Chaudhary said the initiative would help in strengthening physical, intellectual as well as creative faculties in children and would be well conversant with the school environment.
For the purpose, the children have been divided into three groups - nursery (three to four years), lower kindergarten (four to five years) and upper kindergarten (five to six years), Chaudhary said.
She said approximately 1.50 lakh students have taken admission and the process would go on till the end of this month.
The Minister said that Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) would meet four times a year to ensure that every teacher gets a shot at promotion. “Deliberations are going on to form a separate cadre for the border areas in order to fulfil shortfall of teachers in those regions,” she added.
State education secretary Krishan Kumar exhorted all teachers to work with more vigour, zest and zeal to ensure further success of the project.
Earlier, the Minister inspected the infrastructure concerning the running of the project besides visiting the science exhibition put up by the students.
Interacting with the students, the Minister encouraged them to study hard to make a mark in life.