Page 42 - EW December 2023

cover Story

EW india PrEsCHOOL

rankings

2023-24

Introduced in 2010, EWIPR has become an annual
fixture on the national education calendar with the
number of cities covered by the survey increasing from
six to 17 this year. Moreover EW’s consistent advocacy
of professionally administered early childhood care and
education has influenced NEP 2020

Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen

t he privilege of infantS of a for the past 13 years, while the number of cities covered

thin upper crust urban minority for
by the survey has increased to 17 countrywide. Evidently,
EW’s persistent advocacy of universalisation of ECCE has
over six decades after independence,
impacted government and the academy, if not parents
universal professionally provided
early childhood care and education
communities, to the vital importance of professionally
(ECCE) holds a special place in the
hearts and minds of the editors of
The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has
EducationWorld. provided ECCE.
completely reconfigured the centuries-old 10+2 primary-
Inspired by Los Angeles-based secondary school system into a new 5+3+3+4 system to
philanthropist Lowell Milken, also promoter-director tag on three years of compulsory ECCE for every child
of Knowledge Universe Llc which in the early decades of countrywide, merging three years of pre-primary learn-
the 21st century owned Kinder Care — America’s larg- ing with primary education, aka foundational education.
est chain of private pre-primary schools (over 2,000) Read together with the landmark Right of Children to
— in 2010 we convened India’s first international ECCE Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which
conference in Mumbai at which pre-primary education mandates free and compulsory education for all children
experts from around the world alerted educationists, in classes I-VIII (ages 6-14), after NEP 2020, unanimous-
parents and educators about the critical importance of ly approved by the Union Cabinet on July 29, 2020, free
professionally administered ECCE. Simultaneously in education is now compulsory for all children from ages
2010, we introduced the pioneer EducationWorld India 3-14 countrywide.
Preschool Rankings in which we ranked the Top 10 pre- “Over 85 percent of a child’s cumulative brain de-
primaries in India’s six largest cities. velopment occurs prior to the age of six, indicating the
Since then, the EducationWorld India Preschool Rank- critical importance of appropriate care and stimulation
ings (EWIPR) have become an annual fixture on the na- of the brain in the early years in order to ensure healthy
tional education calendar, published without interruption brain development and growth. Presently, quality ECCE

42 educationworld december 2023