Page 131 - EW December 2020

Preschool children: 5+3+3+4 inclusion & universalisation denouement
schools system with a 5+3+3+4 system incorporating five Rankings that rate and rank the best preschools in 16
years of foundational education for all children in the 3-8 cities/towns. However, because of the massive disruption
age group. this year we are obliged to publish a truncated version of
This means that three years of pre-primary educa- the EW India Preschool Rankings in this issue.
tion followed by two years of primary classes — hitherto “Because of Covid-19 complications, this year’s survey
entirely voluntary and provided to a small minority of of the best preschools is restricted to six cities where there
children from middle and elite class households — will is greater awareness and appreciation of high-quality pre-
soon become compulsory and universal. With your edi- school education, viz, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai,
tors repeatedly highlighting well-researched studies, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Our field personnel inter-
particularly of Nobel laureate Dr. James Heckman to viewed 1,459 sample respondents comprising SEC (socio-
the effect that since children’s brains are 80 percent de- economic category) ‘A’ parents with at least one child in
veloped by age eight, and that a dollar invested in profes- pre-primary education, principals and teachers of pre-
sionally provided ECCE is better spent than dollars later primaries. Respondents were asked to rate the most-re-
in the education continuum, the imminent switch to the puted preschools in their cities/towns on ten parameters
5+3+3+4 school system is likely to usher in a sea-change of pre-primary education excellence including teacher
in Indian education resulting in markedly better learning welfare, leadership, teacher competence, curriculum and
outcomes in school and higher education. pedagogy, infrastructure, safety and hygiene and parental
Unfortunately because of the massive disruption involvement, with varying weights. Moreover this year
caused within the education system by the raging Coro- in light of the prolonged close-down of preschools since
navirus pandemic which has prompted the Union and mid-March and children obliged to learn from home,
state governments to force closure of all education insti- we have added a new parameter, viz, online interaction
tutions — pre-primaries, schools, colleges and universi- with a weightage of 100,” says Premchand Palety,
ties across the country have been shuttered since March promoter-CEO of the Centre for Forecasting & Research
25 — and equal disruption in industry, business and (C fore, estb.2000), the highly-reputed market research
the media, the EducationWorld calendar has also been and opinion polls company that has been partnering with
disrupted. Thus far for the past ten years we have been EducationWorld to conduct the pioneer annual EW India
publishing full-fledged EducationWorld India Preschool Preschool Rankings since 2010.

DECEMBER 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 131