Learning or Racing?
India’s New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisioned a stress-free, play-based foundational stage for early learners—especially for children in Grades 1 and 2. It emphasized experiential learning, curiosity, and creativity, while discouraging formal assessments and ranking systems.
But despite these guidelines, a surprising trend is growing:
Olympiads for Class 1 students—from math and science to coding and general knowledge—are being marketed as tools for early career excellence.
This raises important questions about how we view career guidance for students, especially in their formative years.
Are these Olympiads a gateway to early career counselling or a threat to childhood?
What NEP 2020 Really Says
The NEP’s Foundational Stage (ages 3–8) includes:
- Three years of preschool
- Grades 1 and 2
NEP recommends:
- No formal exams or written tests
- Play-based, activity-driven learning
- Development of motor skills, emotional intelligence, and curiosity
It emphasizes career guidance and counselling at appropriate stages—not early competitive benchmarking. According to NEP, children learn best through:
- Stories
- Songs
- Games
- Imaginative play
- Peer interaction
The goal? Build a love for learning—not a fear of failure.
The Olympiad Boom in Class 1: What’s Fueling It?
Despite NEP’s progressive framework, Olympiads for Class 1 students are gaining popularity. Why?
✅ Parental Pressure & Aspirations
Parents associate Olympiads with career success and early achievement. But career counselling websites like Granth Career Counselling stress that foundational years are not for academic competitiveness but for self-discovery and emotional grounding.
✅ Commercialization of Learning
Education-based companies have identified early childhood Olympiads as a lucrative market. Certificates, rankings, and medals are packaged as signs of future potential—even though psychometric tests for career are not designed for children this young.
✅ Peer Pressure & FOMO
Parent WhatsApp groups and social media fuel fear:
“If others are doing it, why aren’t we?”
The result: performance-based assessments are replacing learning for joy.
What Are We Risking? The Emotional Toll
Introducing structured competition in early grades may lead to:
- Anxiety and self-doubt
- Low self-esteem due to poor performance
- Loss of intrinsic motivation to learn
- Dependency on validation and rankings
Top career counselling platforms and student psychologists now warn that exposing children to career-related stress at this stage might cause long-term academic aversion or mental health issues.
Children in Class 1 should be learning how to communicate emotions, not competing for scores.
Are We Already Distrusting NEP 2020?
By allowing Olympiads in Class 1, we’re silently going against the very values that NEP 2020 promotes.
Let’s not confuse career counselling with premature academic pressure.
NEP encourages:
- Career guidance for students only at the right developmental stage
- Use of tools like psychometric tests for career when children are emotionally and cognitively ready
- Supportive environments that nurture growth—not comparisons
The Balanced Way Forward
What Can Schools and Parents Do?
Instead of early Olympiads, we recommend:
🎯 Learning Showcases
Replace ranking exams with presentations, storytelling, or creative expression. Showcase what the child is learning—not how they score.
📱 Gamified EdTech Tools
Use child-friendly platforms that offer non-competitive assessments, similar to stream selector tests or learning style tests—designed to observe, not rank.
🎨 Theme-Based Discovery Carnivals
Organize science/art festivals or community exhibitions to celebrate curiosity, not compete on it.
👨👩👧 Collaborative Learning Days
Parent-teacher-child activity days build collaborative trust and reinforce NEP-aligned educational values.
The Role of Career Counselling
Career counselling for students in colleges and high school is essential—but not in Class 1. That’s where Granth Career Counselling and similar platforms come in—providing:
- Age-appropriate career guidance and counselling for students
- Psychometric tests for career decisions
- Tools like multiple intelligence tests, learning style assessments, and ideal career tests
These resources should be introduced when a child is developmentally ready to reflect, reason, and respond—not when they are still learning the alphabet.
Childhood First, Careers Later
Olympiads in early classes may seem harmless, even helpful—but they reflect a dangerous mindset shift: one that prioritizes competition over creativity, marks over meaning, and ranking over relationships.
NEP 2020 gave us a chance to reset. Let’s not lose it by starting the race too soon.
Are you a parent or educator?
Let’s align with NEP 2020 by replacing exams with exploration.
Explore age-appropriate guidance with Granth Career Counselling—where learning meets well-being.