Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to focus on early childhood care and education in 2023. Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani has asked 14 lakh anganwadi centres to push for early childhood care and education. Last year in September, Smriti Irani announced ‘Poshan Bhi, Padhai Bhi’ slogan under which early childhood care and education will be focused.
To achieve this development, anganwadi centres will be ‘re-imagined’ and ‘re- calibrated’ to focus on nutritional aspect of children and mothers. An emphasis is given on the early learning of children under 6 years of age, particularly those under 3 years, which has proven to be a foundation for a child’s development. From last few years, the government has prioritized early learning of the child than nutrition in its integrated approaches.
Centre plans to re- shape the anganwadis and pre schools to provide early learning access particularly to children from socially and educationally backward communities. The Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani had set -up a 22-member high level task force, chaired by former IAS officer Sanjay Kaul, to look into the issue. Last year in August, the task force has submitted its findings with recommendations. The report is now under consideration by the ministry.
The task force has taken cognisant of the two emerging issues in the early education and care of the children– the perceptible shift of young children into private pre-schools and under-age children being admitted in Class 1 in a few states. Further, parents feel that the quality of education including other services imparted in the anganwadis are inferior as compared to the private nursery schools. This has compelled the parents to shift towards private educational institutions. These private educational institutions are offering low quality of education to the students enrolled.
As the part of the recommendation, the task force calls for ‘re- branding’ of the anganwadis in mission-mode approach. The re- branding includes upgraded infrastructure, ECCE materials, nutritional aspects, leveraging MGNREGS funds, expansion of timings, setting up of creches and day care services, and play equipment, etc. It further suggested to include institutions like panchayat raj institutions, women’s self-help groups, local non-government organisations, and college volunteers to improve the implementation.
The task force chaired by Sanjay Kaul recommended that 70,000 anganwadis centres in India should be upgraded as anganwadi-cum-crèches in the first phase. Further a common curriculum should be developed across different anganwadis models with an emphasis on education in the child’s mother tongue. The committee has asked for Rs 9,800 crore to fulfil the task.
The Centre in the National Education Policy 2020 noted that quality early childhood care and education is not delivered to crores of Indian children. Taking in view of the issue, the government has focused on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in the National Education Policy 2020. The policy mentions that major portion of a child’s brain development occurs before the age of 6 years and hence also emphasised on the foundational literacy and numeracy.
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