The Great Indian Divide!
When it
comes to preschools or preschool education in our country there are many
divides: the ‘what to call it divide’, the rich and poor divide, the rural and
urban divide, the parent and school divide, the central government and state
government divide and the teacher training course divide! The future of
preschools in our country can be great only once we bridge all these divides.
The first divide: what to
call it divide- different names in different states?
Early
childhood is divided into two areas, ECC- Early Childhood Care and ECE- Early
Childhood Education. ECC is from inception to 3 years and ECE is from 3 to 6
years. First there is the divide about what to call it, preschool?
Playschool? Early childhood education? Kindergarten? Early childhood
development? Nursery school? Montessori school?
Preschool
and playschool both have the word school, which in Latin may mean leisure but
in India school is about academics, so it is better not to call it that as the
pressure of learning to read, write and count will be forced down on these
young babies. Fredrick Froebel, the father of Kindergarten, invented
kindergarten but many don’t want it to be Froebelian! Montessori was the true
mother of early childhood education but many don’t want it to be Montessorian!
So we are left with early childhood education or early childhood development.
Education would again bring the focus only on rote learning whereas development
would bring the focus on developmentally appropriate Practice (DAP) Brain research
and neuro science has proven that 98% of the brain develops in the first six
years. So it is imperative that parents and teachers use this crucial period to
teach the young brain ‘how to learn’ and not ‘what to learn’. When we teach
children how to learn they learn to be independent thinkers, problem solvers
and logic seekers. When we train their brains what to learn then we have only
one result- rote learning, a brain that cannot think, understand or relate or
conduct executive brain functions, it can only remember.
The second divide: central
policy or state policy
Education
is a concurrent subject in our country so the central ministry makes the
policies and then the states have the right to draft their policies based on the
same with changes etc.
But here
comes the most important question early childhood comes under the Women and
Child Development Ministry not HRD and at the state it does not come under the
education department then why is it a concurrent subject? Why is each state
redefining the policy and minimum non negotiable like minimum area required per
child, teacher child ratio, safety and curriculum? Are we saying that the
children in different states need different amount of space to sit? Culture and
language can change but developmentally a child between the age of 2 to 6 years
is on the same continuum whether in Delhi, Kerala, Tamilnadu or Maharashtra.
Then why waste precious public money and reinvent the wheel in each state.
We have a
well-defined policy for early childhood by the Women and Child Development
Ministry and a well-drafted curriculum: National Early Childhood Care and
Education (ECCE) Curriculum Framework. Not many preschools are
aware about the same; it should be used as a textbook in early childhood
teacher training courses. Which brings us to the next divide…
The third divide: the
teacher-training course divide.
Unlike B.Ed.
that is a common qualification across the country, to become an ECCE teacher
there is no one common course. Different states have different courses, some
are 2 years, some are 1 year, and some are ridiculously for 3 and 6 months!
Some are after 10th standard, some after 12 standard and some are
postgraduate. Its time to have a common course across the nation as these
teachers would be laying the foundation of life skills and learning skills in
young children. Presently anganwadi
teachers, private preschool teachers, balwadi teachers are all trained
differently! There is also a need to define a common core teacher-training
curriculum that should be implemented by all early childhood teacher-training
courses in the country.
The fourth divide: the rich
and poor and urban and rural divide.
At Early
Childhood Association we are very worried about a ‘brain-drain’ that is
draining the human resource of this country. The early years are most crucial
as they are the brain development years, the foundation of all important life
skills are during the early years, but because of lack of good early childhood
centers, our ‘poor’ children are bereft of good early childhood care. So there
is a marked difference in the quality care that a ‘rich child’ receives from a
‘poor child’, and it can be as simple as the number of words that these
children are exposed to or the sensory stimulation that these children receive
in the first 3 years, because that defines their future personalities and
success. 80% of our population is growing up with inadequate early care and
development whereas 20% are growing up with superb early care and development,
how will our country progress when 80% of its population is already behind in
their growth and development? Early Childhood Development – early education
and care – makes a difference that persists well into adulthood. It shapes who
you become. At that age, your brain is making new connections that will one day
become the blueprint for your life. And at that age, if you don’t receive the
right kind of care or learning, you will grow up with... a few crayons missing from your life’s pencil
box. And why should that happen to anybody?
The urban
and rural divide is amazing! I have seen many great early childhood rural
programs and some horrible urban programs but yet the urban programs are a
‘benchmark’ whereas the rural program are looked down just because they are not
in English?! Many of our best practices are in our rural centers but don’t make
the mark because of the rural tag. And many of our urban centers are
interviewing children, making their lives stressful and miserable with exams,
tests, overburdening with ‘class hopping’ and are yet called centers of
excellence!
The fifth divide: the parent
and school divide.
Today in
every state parents and schools are at loggerheads for various issues, the most
important being fees. Parents also face a huge challenge in understanding what
kind of ‘preschool’ to choose for their children, which philosophy, what should
it should teach their child, what should be the safety measures, what is the
school’s and parent’s responsibility etc. there is an urgent need for the
government especially the women and child development ministry to come out with
some parent education guidelines, these guidelines should define what parents
can and should not do in parenting, a simple example is spanking children,
parents are unaware of the harmful effects of the same.
Why is it
left to the parent to decide whether to give early childhood care and education
to their children? Who is the school to decide whether to admit a child for
early childhood care and education? Every child is entitled to early childhood
care and education, this is explicitly given in the preamble of our
National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy it states: It clearly states
that – the government of India recognized the significance of ECCE through the
amended Article 45 of the Indian constitution that directs that “The state
shall endeavor to provide ECCE for all children until they complete the age of
six years.” The RTE act also states, “with a view to prepare children above the
age of 3 years for elementary education and to provide early childhood care and
education for all children until they complete the age of six years, the
appropriate government may make the necessary arrangement for providing free
preschool education for such children.”
The sixth divide: the quality divide.
What
should be the quality of any early childhood center, whether government run,
privately run or run by an NGO? Who is monitoring this? Presently it is a
chaotic state of affairs. So why can’t we learn from the world? Most developed
and developing countries have the following, which is the need of the hour as
of yesterday for India.
1. A
National Quality Framework includes: a national
legislative framework that consists of: the Education and Care Services
National Law (‘National Law’) the Education and Care Services National
Regulations (‘National Regulations’)
2. A National Quality
Standard consisting of seven Quality Areas: Educational program and
practice
·
Children’s
health and safety
·
Physical
environment
·
Staffing
arrangements
·
Relationships
with children
·
Collaborative
partnerships with families and communities
·
Leadership
and service management.
·
3. A national quality rating and
assessment process through which
services are assessed against the National Quality Standard by Regulatory
Authorities and provided with a rating from one of the five rating levels.
4. A Regulatory Authority in each
state and territory who have primary
responsibility for the approval, monitoring and quality assessment of services
in their jurisdiction in accordance with the national legislative framework and
in relation to the National Quality Standard
5. A national body—to oversee the system and guide its implementation in a
nationally consistent way.
Keeping
the above need in mind we at the Early Childhood Association strongly believe
that having
an affiliation board for preschools in our country would be a logical solution
that would benefit all three stakeholders- children, parents and preschools.
The government can still license the schools or take care of the NOC
requirements but the curriculum, philosophy and other important aspects can be
done by the affiliation/accreditation board of ECE. Early Childhood Association
has now launched its ECE accreditation board and it will be rolled out with
schools from August 2018
The
process of affiliation/ accreditation is as follows:
¡ A
self-study,
¡ An
application (and fees),
¡ A
validation visit to verify information,
¡ And yearly
certification through written documentation.
¡ Upon
receiving official accreditation, the provider receives a certificate that
verifies status.
With the recent spate of accidents, incidents
and other safety related issues that have happened in preschools, it becomes
the need of the hour to have an affiliation body that can accreditate the
parameters affecting learning, safety and development of the child. Many
parents are presently using preschool guide websites to find out the ‘review’
of the preschool but that is not a fool proof nor a realistic guide to the
exact quality of learning and safety standard of a preschool.
For the future of early childhood development in our country, ECA strongly
urges the Prime Minister to look into
these points .
Over 40 percent of India’s children in the 0-6
age group are deprived of any early childhood care despite the Constitution and
Parliament having recognized the importance of ECCE. Article 45 of the Constitution directs that “the State shall Endeavour to provide
ECCE for all children until
they
complete the age of six years”.
The plain truth is that after more than 65 years since independence early
childhood care, development and education in this country is still neglected.
It’s time the country invested in taking care of its youngest citizens.
1. Strong
need for a separate ministry that focuses on early childhood care and
education. (Our country is battling with crimes
against women and children. If we want our national human resource, our young
children to grow up as strong, healthy, and competent youth then it is time to
invest in early childhood. Because there is too much work to be done regarding
laws, policies, frameworks, trainings, support systems, health, nutrition etc.
it’s time to dedicate a separate ministry to early childhood development, care
and education. The ministry can look after pregnancy, birth, mothering,
parenting, child and mother health, child health and nutrition, care and
education of young children. The ministry can look into child rights, child
laws and thus strengthen the generations that will grow up and take this
country to become a super power Examples around the world- Australia has
ministry for families and children, Singapore,
has the Early Childhood Development Agency which is an independent agency
charged with overseeing child care and kindergarten education. In Scotland, governance is handled by the
Ministry of Children and Young People.)
2. The early childhood policy and curriculum
framed by Women and Child Development Ministry at the center should be made non
negotiable for all states to implement as the basic policy and curriculum, they
can add points as per their state. This saves time in reinventing the wheel, as
child development is not region, culture, or language specific. The language in
which it is implemented can differ (example New Zeeland has a policy and
curriculum in English and Maori the local language)
3. Model early childhood development centers to
replace present anganwadis to be set up in each state by the government. These
centers must take care of parent education, pregnancy related health and
nutrition, parent education classes, childcare, child nutrition and health and
early childhood education.
4.
Be it Anganawadis, Balwadis, or private
preschools the common core guidelines for Quality, safety, and curriculum
should be the same. Example Head start program of USA. (Head Start was founded on the idea that every child -- no matter whom
they are, what they look like, or where they grow up -- deserves the chance to
reach their full potential. Since 1965, it has given meaning to the
simple truth that in America, where you start should not determine how far you
can go.)
5.
Once early childhood centers
mandatorily follow the curriculum guidelines in the national ECE policy then
all educational boards to be advised by HRD ministry to sync their standard one
curriculum to that of the ECE curriculum. Thus every child will begin with a
strong foundation.
6. The age to begin nursery and
the age to begin standard one should be same across all states in India,
presently it differs in many states. It should be 3 years by 30th
September for nursery and 6 years by 30th September for standard
one.
7.
There should be a common teacher-training
course mandated for early childhood teachers across the country. Like B.Ed. is
the common program for primary and secondary teachers, presently each state has
a different course, course matter, and duration for the early childhood
teacher-training program.
8.
Inclusive education and counseling to be
important subjects in the teacher-training program.
9.
Assessment guidelines to be made clear and
defined for preschools.
Young children are the other
minority in our country, because they are presently just 20% of our population,
have no voice, cannot vote so are being ignored when it comes to policy, laws,
investments. But every business house, entertainment house, corporate company,
uses young children for their benefit; crimes against young children are on the
rise. Young children in our country are still battling with diseases,
malnutrition, and lack of proper health facilities, childcare. Our country
needs to set up child protective services to take care of them. We need to
invest in our young children because they are going to grow up and become the
youth of this country. It will be too late to take care of them then, because
research has proven that the early years are when the foundation of all future
growth is gained.
The
author Dr. Swati Popat Vats is the founder President of Early Childhood
Association India. As President of Podar Education Network she leads over 290
preschools and Daycares as founder Director of Podar Jumbo Kids. She is also
National representative for the World Forum Foundation. She is Nursery Director of Little Wonders Nursery
(UAE) that has branches in Jumeirah and Sharjah. She has received many accolades and awards for her
contribution to Early Childhood Education and has been conferred the Fellowship
of Honor from the New Zealand Tertiary College. She was the founder consultant
for the Euro Kids preschool project in India and helped set up TATASKY’s
children’s television activity channel- ACTVE WHIZKIDS. She is the founder
expert on the world’s first video based parenting website www.born-smart.com that helps parents understand and nurture
brain development in the first 1000 days.
Swati
has authored many books for parents and children and is a strong advocate of
nature based learning in the early years and promotes brain research based
teaching and parenting in her workshops across the globe. Swati tweets and
blogs on education and parenting and can be followed on @swatipopat or www.kiducationswatipvats.blogspot.in
