Early Childhood Education In India
National Education Policy (NEP),2020 stipulating that early childhood education (ECE) for children from three to six years be taken care of by anganwadis.
The premise of preschool itself is that over 85% of a child’s brain development occurs by the age of six, and the mind and body need to be stimulated in ways that encourage growth.
As per the NEP, free preschool education can be imparted in four ways:
Through anganwadis either located within government schools, or as stand-alone entities.
Through government schools that have a preschool, or through stand-alone preschools.
Anganwadi workers do an observational assessment of children, ticking boxes in the child’s report card to the parents for physical, cognitive, socio-emotional, language, and pre math skills.
In the scaling up of anganwadis, three aspects are considered: the space itself, the anganwadi workers who must now double as teachers, and the lesson plans that contribute to the play-way method of teaching.
An estimate by international non-profit Save The Children found in 2022 that 99 million children in India are eligible for ECE services as per the 2011 Census.
Up to 31.4 million children are being covered through anganwadi services and pre-primary sections in government schools, but up to 68% of children between three and six years are out of the ambit of the public provisioning for ECE in India.
Challenges
Infrastructure challenges
Lack of electricity and water supply.
The biggest challenge for the Ministry of Education is to convince States to admit only children of age six and above to Class I. With different States taking different approaches, there is a paucity of Central data for preschool education.
Many anganwadis grapple with simple shortages like the lack of workers.
Another challenge is the scaling up of preschool education to 1.4 million anganwadis across the country.
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