Early Childhood Care and Sustainability
Dr P K Anand,
Visiting Fellow, RIS
A T20 side event was jointly organized by RIS, New
Delhi; Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and
Growth (CIPPEC), Argentina; Dublin City University (DCU); African Network of Early Childhood
Education (AfECN); and GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies on 4th
November 2020. [1] The event was spurred on the T20 deliberations
carried out through various task forces that evolved Policy Briefs on both the
development and finance track. Notably, the early childhood care and sustainability
has already become an integral structured part of T20 work programme since 2018.
The
criticality of early child care and education in averting deepening of
inequalities by giving fair chance to a vulnerable family to catch up with the
mainstream cannot be overstated. The challenges of early childhood systems as a G20 priority area,
need closer collaboration on the aspect of ‘leaving no child behind’. The
first six years of life are critical, since around 90% of brain development
takes place in these years influenced not only by health, nutrition, informal
education and quality of care but also the quality of psycho-social environment
a child is exposed to. As an offshoot of the pandemic led virtual coverage,
big data can play a critical role to ensure that each child is tracked. On the
issue of the stage at which tracking should be initiated, the issue of initiating
it even before birth of a child during pregnancy of the mother was stressed. Tracking
and monitoring of her parameters, like anaemia, and going a stage earlier the enabling
factor of how well a society undertakes universal monitoring of adolescent girls
was emphasized. A related issue is whether a birth is in an institutional facility
and thus by trained medical attendants, and is it then electronically captured
into a monitoring framework so that it can be helpful in tracking each child
born in such a facility.
On
the issue of education community led pre-school education, alongwith health and
nutrition education; commensurate with the development of cognitive abilities; steered
by G20 exchange of good practices, translated into the local languages, can be
of immense help and is another plank to collaborate. Further, the community
interventions should be comprehensive and in line with the social cohesion.
These should cover, besides the education components, supplementary nutrition,
immunization, health check-ups, growth charts and need based referral services.
In addition, how to reach out during the pandemic remains critical towards
which provision of take home rations remains an essential step.
Coming
to the Indian situation, as per the UN population projections India has around
186 million children in the age group of 0-6 which is the highest in the world.
Socio–economic as well as cultural and linguistic diversity while encountering inequities
and vulnerabilities based on gender, social identity, disability, city/ rural
divide are major prevalent challenges. India has taken a slew of policy
initiatives implemented through various actors to address early childhood
development (ECD) and early childhood education and care (ECEC) at local,
sub-national and national levels to provide much needed support and care for
children.
On the aspect of Indian institutional
set-up for early childhood development and education an important pillar
is Anganwadis
(community-based pre-school centers), administered by the Department of Women
and Child Development (DWCD) as part of the Integrated Child Development
Services (ICDS). Pre-school education is imparted in anganwadis, leading to
schooling administered by the educational set up. The focus of the policy
manifested through the umbrella ICDS encompasses core ICDS, PM’s Maternity
benefit scheme, National crèche scheme, Nutrition Mission, and Child protection
scheme. Notably, ICDS is conceptualized as community based for improved service
delivery as well as raising awareness and behavioral changes in child care
practices at household level, while the nutrition mission is envisioned to be ‘Jan-bhagidaari’ i.e. a people’s
movement, alongwith ‘save the girl child, educate the girl child’ campaign. To
strengthen the institutional set up there is need for making comprehensive
institutional frameworks of Early Childhood Development, Education and Care
(ECDEC).
In this direction as a
recent vital step the national education policy (NEP) 2020 emphasizes a lot on
pre-school education terming it, ‘The Foundation of Learning’. It covers major
reconfiguration of curricular and pedagogical structure for early years as an
integral part of foundational stage. Its synergy with the National Early
Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Policy demands to nurture and promote
holistic development and active learning capacity of all children below 6 years
of age by promoting free, universal, inclusive, equitable, joyful and
contextualised opportunities for laying foundation and attaining full
potential.
Importantly, to face the COVID-19 led shocks the
institutional resilience manifested to
the fore through take home rations under ICDS for children, pregnant and
lactating women; promotion of kitchen gardens; virtual learning with the help
of parents utilizing the wide mobile telephony coverage alongwith DBT supported
by unhindered supply chains should be scaled up. Towards this end International
dialogue, research and collaboration on policy questions and policy choices,
especially in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic led new constraints and its
disproportionately higher and widespread impact on early childhoods, need to be
shared and holistically addressed, to timely achieve SDGs. To attain it investment
in quality institutions, educators and infrastructure, deeper involvement of
parents, educators and providers is needed, alongwith increased access to
digital technology. For instance, in
the South Asian context, the need for proper WASH facilities and serving of hot
cooked meals to kill all bacteria and virus, can’t be overemphasized, these being
high rainfall countries. Undoubtedly, in the Post-COVID world too alertness
against a new pandemic can’t be undermined. In totality the early childhood
care, development and education should be treated as a public good and
investments made in it and hand-holding should be steered by G20 on all its aspects
especially for the vulnerable and poor with focus on less developed and
developing countries.
[1] RIS team led by Director General, Prof. Sachin
Chaturvedi included Dr. Beena Pandey, Mr. Krishna Kumar and Dr. P.K.Anand, and
was represented in the side event by Dr. Anand.
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