According to UNICEF, early childhood is defined as the period from conception through eight years of age. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is more than preparation for primary school. It aims at the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs in order to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing. Target 4.2 of SDG 4 aims that by 2030, to ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education.

Body:

Significance of ECCE:

• Early childhood is a time of remarkable growth with brain development at its peak.
• During this stage, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them.
• These years lay the foundations for her/ his learning and holistic development.
• Children will be better prepared for primary school and will reach better education outcomes.
• Quality ECCE also helps reduce repetition and drop-out rates.
• Positive outcomes are even more pronounced among children from vulnerable groups.
• It helps promote human resource development, gender equality and social cohesion, and to reduce the costs for later remedial programmes.
• An overview of 56 studies across 23 countries found impacts on health, education, cognitive ability, and emotional development

Draft NEP and ECCE:

• The draft National Education Policy (NEP) developed by a committee chaired by K. Kasturirangan was shared for public comment.
• The Policy projecting an expansion of the Right to Education Act to cover the three years of preschool before Class 1.
• It suggests a new integrated curricular framework for 3 to 8-year olds with a flexible system based on play, activity and discovery, and beginning exposure to three languages from age 3 onwards.
• The policy aims to provide High-quality early childhood care and education for all children between the ages of three and six by 2025.
• This will be done within schools and anganwadis, which will take care of the overall well-being of the child.
• These institutions will also provide similar support to families for children younger than three years of age—within their homes.
• This policy will result in a massive positive multiplier effect on society.

Challenges:

• One of the major issues of ECCE is the unavailability of trained teachers.
• Anganwadis are currently quite deficient in supplies and infrastructure for education.
• As a result, they tend to contain more children in the 2-4 year age range and fewer in the educationally critical 4-6 year age range.
• Anganwadis also have few teachers trained in or specially dedicated to early childhood education.
• Private pre-schools often consist of formal teaching and rote memorisation with limited play-based learning.
• A 2017 study by the Ambedkar University showed that “a significant proportion of children in India who completed pre-primary education, public or private, did not have the needed school readiness competencies when they joined primary school.

Way forward:

• ECCE teacher training should be added as a skill gap in the list of National Skill Development Corporation to ensure that easy investment is available to produce efficient ECCE teachers.
• Universal access to quality early childhood education is perhaps the best investment that India can make for our children’s and our nation’s future.