Page 12 - EW JAN 2022

Education News

DELHI is being designed to enable smooth
Anganwadis silver lining transition of two-three-year-olds in

primary classes under the 5+3+3+4
format prescribed in NEP 2020. But
with the country’s 60,000 private
preschools and 1.38 million AWCs
under lockdown for 70 weeks and
counting, picking up the pieces and
momentum by way of trained teach-
ers and providing necessary ECCE
infrastructure, is likely to prove a
formidable challenge.
“Talking about youngest children
and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic
on them, in a way their whole child-
hood has been lost and they have
suffered deep psycho-social dam-
age. Denied all-important literacy
and numeracy skills for almost two
years, youngest children are perhaps
AWC in Maharashtra: formidable challenges the most deprived section of society.
The challenge that the prolonged
ollowing a prolonged and the national radar. Worse, young- lockdown of AWCs for almost 70
sustained campaign by Edu- est children in the country’s 1.38 weeks poses to schools and teachers
FcationWorld, which staged million anganwadi centres (AWCs) is humungous. Teaching children
its first international conference on — essentially nutritional centres admitted in classes I-III will be a
early childhood care and education for new-borns and lactating moth- serious difficulty for teachers as they
(ECCE) in 2010 and has been since ers — established under the Central are not trained to teach foundational
rating, ranking and awarding the government’s Integrated Child literacy. Mildly put, there will be
best private pre-primary schools Development Scheme (perhaps the chaos when schools reopen fully,”
and government-run anganwadi late prime minister Indira Gandhi’s predicts Dr. Geeta Menon, former
centres in major cities countrywide, greatest contribution to national professor at Centre for Early Child-
the critical importance of ECCE was development), have arguably suf- hood Development and Research
acknowledged by the high powered fered most by way of learning loss of Jamia Millia Islamia University,
K. Kasturirangan Committee (2019) and socio-emotional damage. AWCs Delhi.
and given official acknowledgement countrywide that provide a modicum Moreover according to ECCE
and high importance in the National of ECCE, parsimoniously host 90 experts, merging AWCs with schools
Education Policy (NEP) 2020. million children and are also obliged as proposed in NEP 2020 is likely
NEP 2020 acknowledges that to provide free-of-charge mid-day to pose its own challenges. AWCs
every child has a right to attain foun- meals — the world’s largest child are essentially community centres
dational literacy and numeracy by nutrition programme. to which mothers and other com-
age eight, and has restructured the However the silver lining is that munity workers have free access
country’s century-old 10+2 school on recommendation of Parliament’s and the environment is informal.
education system to a new 5+3+3+4 Standing Committee on education, Schools on the other hand are formal
pre-primary to class XII system that women, children, youth and sports, institutions. Therefore, AWCs within
formally incorporates ECCE into the Delhi-based NCERT (National schools will need to function as au-
K-12 education. Unfortunately, NEP Council for Educational Research & tonomous structures with their own
was formally presented to the nation Training) in consultation with the teacher cadres. This is likely to prove
on July 29, 2020 when the novel Union ministry of women & child a long haul.
Coronavirus aka Covid-19 pandemic development and National Institute Meanwhile to India’s Central and
was sweeping the country and all of Public Cooperation and Child state governments given to shutting
education institutions including pre- Development, is in the final stages of down and reopening schools accord-
primaries were under strict lock- drawing up a national curriculum for ing to their whims, Unicef has given
down since March 25, 2020. children in the 3-6 age group. unambiguous advice to invest in
Since then NEP 2020 has gone off NCERT’s new ECCE curriculum teachers and infrastructure. But the

12 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2022