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Editorial
After the approval of the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) on 29th July, 2020 
by the Government of India, the first of the four National Curriculum Frameworks 
on the Foundational Stage was released on 20th October, 2022 at New Delhi. By 
all account, this stage, the foundational stage is indeed foundational in the life of 
a child as researches reveal that learning at this stage positively impacts learnings 
later in life. NEP (2020) recommends five years of an integrated Early Childhood 
Care and Education (ECCE) for children between ages 3 – 8in the 5+3+3+4 curricular 
and pedagogical structure of school education. The policy envisages that by 2030 
all the children will be school-ready from Grade 1 onwards. AnganvadiCentres/Pre-
School/ Bal Vatikas in the country will help in achieving this important milestone. 
Classes 1 and 2 will form the last 2 years of the Foundational Stage. NEP 2020 
recommends play-based, activity-based and inquiry-based curricula.

This NCF for Foundational Stage builds on the NEP2020. It defines aims, curricular 
goals, competencies and learning outcomes at this stage. It also discusses 
approaches for learning language and numeracy. It recommends pedagogy to be 
adopted in classrooms, assessment plans to be used in order to achieve learning 
objectives and overall strategies to be followed to link up with the preparatory 
stage to strengthen the learning foundations of our young learners. The document 
ends with a few illustrative examples and researches from the country and world 
on ECCE.

In so far using technology at the foundational stage is concerned, this NCF says

i. “Enabling access to a diverse range of content and materials that is contextual 
for the child, age-appropriate and in a range of languages and materials.” So, 
it says that all types of eContent (packaged in traditional media such as text, 
images, audio, video or new media such as interactive content and immersive 
content) in children’s own languages can be made available to them. 

ii. “Enabling access to content in diverse forms, spaces, and formats to ensure 
equitable access and to ensure inclusion of Divyang children.” All existing 
technologies and platforms such as radio, TV, internet, computers, tablets, etc. 
may be used to reach out to children. 

iii. “Ensuring that the key focus of the material would be to create an enjoyable 
experience for the learner and feed the child’s innate curiosity and agency.”

iv. “Supporting the capability development of Teachers, parents and the 
community.”

It is important to note here that at this stage, NCF recommends providing a diverse 
range of engaging content across different platforms to the learners. Capacity 
building is restricted to teachers, parents and members of the community. It 
shows concerns about children spending time in using digital technology and its 
effect on their physical and mental well-being. However, it does not shy away from 
suggesting controlled and moderate use of digital technology by children. Perhaps 
to make them aware of the technology itself. It recommends digital infotainment 
for children. Further, the NCF for Foundational Stage recommends embedding 
the textbooks developed at this stage with appropriate audio/video/immersive 
eContent. The NCF at this stage lays emphasis on the digital rights of children 
and invokes the guidelines suggested by the UN Commission on the Rights of the 



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Child, which states that such a digital right is “non-discriminatory”, gives primacy 
to “children’s development”, serves the “best interests of the child and respect 
children’s views.”

Recently, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 was released by 
Pratham Education Foundation. It throws some interesting insights into the state 
of education in the country, especially about the foundational stage. There has 
been a substantial increase in the enrollment rates of young children (ages 3-5 
years) in some sort of ECCE centres including the Anganwadi centres. The increase 
is even more for children of age 4 or 5. Despite pandemic-induced closures of 
schools, the enrollment rate for the age group (6-14) has also increased marginally. 
Government schools too saw a rise in the enrollment rate in this age group. An 
encouraging sign is a decline in the proportion of girls (age 11-14) who are not 
currently enrolled.  The decrease in the proportion of girls not enrolled in school is 
even sharper among older girls in the 15-16 age group, ASER, 2022 reports. Along 
with these encouraging signs in enrollment, the report also flags a few serious 
concerns such as the drop in the basic reading ability of children (true for both boys 
and girls and students of both government schools and private schools) to pre-
2012 levels. Children’s basic arithmetic levels have also declined to pre-2018 levels. 

So, efforts to increase access to educational opportunities for all sections of 
students have yielded positive results; it’s the quality of education that remains the 
central concern. Can technology be of any help in overcoming this crisis, this is a 
moot question. 

This issue consists of twenty one manuscripts: seventeen research articles, one 
review article, two general articles and one book review. These articles are related 
to concepts like, online education, Augmented Reality, happiness curriculum and 
online learning, use of mobile games in education, cyber safety and security and 
multimedia learning. I thank all the authors and reviewers for contributing in taking 
out this issue of the journal. I hope the manuscripts will contribute in yet another 
episode of academic discourse.

(ABHAY KUMAR)
Editor