Early Childhood Care and Education in India

ECCE has been included as a constitutional provision but not as a justiciable right of every child through article 45, which reads as “The State shall endeavor to provide ECCE for all children until they complete the age of six years”. The world leaders, educationists and development planners have prepared The Dakar framework for action which aims to provide quality education for all by 2015 and it not only covers primary education but also focuses on literary goals, gender equality and quality concern. The first goal of Dakar Framework of action is centred on “Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children”. Early education is as imperative to both individual and society well-being as the education of older children and young adults.

While implementing RTE Act in India, the policy makers left ECCE as an integral component where the children between the age group of 0 to 18 could be benefited. But because of financial and other administrative pressure, this did not include within RTE. The major component and indicators like drop out and low enrolment and retainment which is being ensured to reduce through the intervention of RTE can only possible when there is a strong ECCE mechanism in the country.

Learning begins at birth

The first five to six years of children’s life is very crucial as these periods help them for their life-long development. While educators and other child rights activists repeatedly insisted on the expansion of formal early education opportunities for young children, there are inadequate measures being undertaken so far in India to promote and expand the scope of Early childhood Care and Education (ECCE) of the children. Where Care relates to health and nutrition of a child, Education refers to the pre-school education when a child gets enrolled at the age between 3 to 6 years in nursery or kinder-garten. “Education” in the early childhood years is much broader than pre-schooling, incarcerating learning through early motivation, guidance and a range of developmental activities and opportunities. Young children’s experiences in the first years produce the groundwork for successive learning in their later phases.

Prominent policies in the context of Provision of ECCE in India

·       

National Nutrition Policy, 1993 which recognized children below six years as high-risk group to be given high priority

·       

National Policy on Education(1986)

·       

National Policy on Empowerment of Women(2001),supported provision of childcare facilities, including crèches at work places

·       

United Nations Convention on Rights of the Children(UNCRC-Ratified in 1992)

·       

National Plan of Action for Children (2005) included universalisation of ECCE as one of the goals.

·       

National Curriculum Framework(2005) emphasized 2 years of pre-schooling .It advocates play-based developmentally appropriate curriculum

Access and coverage

Unequal access to early education is worrisome because learning gaps are developing among children in the preschool years, and children who are behind when they enter school are unlikely to catch up with their peers. The uncovered and unreached children of ECE are found in both rural and urban areas. While in rural areas, they are located in isolated and remote hamlets, dalit hamlets and settlement, in urban areas, they may be broadly identified as small slums, construction workers, rural migrants and etc.

As per the 2001 census, the country has approximately 60 million children in the age group of 3-6 years. The approximate coverage is about 34 million children by the pre-schooling initiatives under ICDS. More than 60 percent of the 3-6 years children do not get pre-school education facilities in India. Till today, there is no pre-school education system by the government. Rather, in private schools, nursery and kindergartens classes are like pre-school education where the results are very affirmative. And therefore it needs recognition. Despite the regular expansion of the ICDS, the coverage of children for ECCE is still as low as 40%. Though some states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh have improved their Child Development Index, still, there is a visible gap between the policy and its practices. Both in the Union and State budgets, the allocations of central and state sponsored schemes for child related provisions are remaining less than 5% from the total outlays which is quite alarming.

(Pre-school age population projection)

Pre School age▪

Public spending on child development

Fiscal priorities play a prominent role in various indices of child development. If the government would not allocate sufficient funds for ECCE activities and regulate that outlays transform into outcomes, then there would be no justification of spending. Another and the most disheartening factor is that most of the states’ spending is generally on non-plan expenditures of recurrent nature. Again, there is lacking a perfect collaboration in the form of better and shared responsibility for the centre and the state to achieve the desired outcome in ECCE .Because the fiscal deficit and implementing deficiency are affecting the possible outcome intended to achieve through Right to Education Act.

Innovations in ICDS

The functioning of Anganwardi Centres (AWCs) in the country has very less impact in its own objectives and goals. The early childhood care and education emphasizes at alround development of a child from his/her pre-natal stage to 8 years. There has to be addressed different aspects of a child like cognitive development, physical and motor development, creativity and aesthetic appreciation, scientific ways of thinking and inculcation of healthy habits. The infrastructural facilities available are also discouraging. According to Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) 2011, there are 456994 ICDS Centres in India. Around 25,453 million children enrolled in these centres but only 31 percent of them attend and participate there in a regular basis.

ECCE as a fundamental Rights

Though UNCRC advocates that ECCE should be a right for every child, but still India has not yet expanded its responsibility to making it a justiceable rights. Thanks to the RTE which has not included Early Childhood Education i.e. education as a right from 0 to 14 years. It would have been sidelined more on these children who are under the age group of 0 to 6 years. Where RTE faces innumerable challenges due t its one sided policy planning and out of any practices

The Working Group for the XI Five year plan of India has recommended in their report that the government should develop a new Paradigm to deal with inert crisis of pre school education. According to them, It must rest on A right based approach that braces the ECE directive, under 45 of the Indian Constitution, in preparation for its inclusion as a Fundamental Right to Education. In 12^th Five years plan also, there is a promise made to do comprehensive development on ECCE in the country.

In order to extend and enlarge the benefits of early childhood Education, the government must come out with contextually appropriate, locally relevant innovative strategies and so that every child of our country can get better and prospective childhood.

_____________________________

References

• www.unesco.org/global
• Education for All-Mid Decade Assessment Report-NUEPA
• Working Group on development of children for the five year Plan(2007-2012)
• Women and Child Development Website, Govt. of Odisha
• NCERT.(2005a) Seventh All India Educational Survey, Provisional Statistics as on September 30,2002.New Delhi
• www.samadrusti.com
• Census of India: Population Projections for India and States, 1996-2016.Registrar General, India for figures from 2001 onwards
• The World Bank (2005a): India’s undernourished children. A call for reform and action. Washington, D.C. The World Bank and Oxford University Press
• www.orissapost.com