Page 53 - EW December 2025

years of age. Since 2010, we have convened 12 annual ECCE national
Moreover, in a nation that foolishly accords low prior- conferences and initiated the annual EW India Preschool
ity to developing its prime factor endowment of human Rankings (EWIPR) to impact the critical importance of pro-
resource, the ICDS programme has been under-funded ab fessionally administered ECCE for youngest children. The
initio. For instance in 2025-26, the Central government’s inaugural (2010) EWIPR evaluated and ranked best pre-
budgetary allocation for 1.39 million AWCs is a mere primaries in six major cities where there was a modicum of
Rs.26,889 crore which translates into Rs.3,361 per child awareness of the importance of formal ECCE. Since then,
per year or Rs.280 per month, scarcely enough to cover nu- the pioneer EWIPR has evolved into the country’s largest
trition, leave aside education provision expense. Although and most comprehensive preschools rankings survey, with
state governments chip in by paying the remuneration of league tables assessing 959 preschools in 76 cities country-
the (usually sole) AWC ‘worker’ and towards the free-of- wide under ten parameters of early childhood education
charge mid-day meal of children, salaries of AWC workers excellence, and ranking them inter se.
are pitifully inadequate (Rs.10,000-15,000 per month), The prime objective of EWIPR is to enable parents to se-
and states contribute only 40 percent of mid-day meal lect the most aptitudinally suitable pre-primaries for young-
costs. The contribution of 29 state governments towards est children. A second objective is multiplication and upgra-
the ICDS programme is estimated at Rs.16,000 crore per dation of ECCE institutions countrywide through emulation
year, a paltry contribution spread over 84 million children. and healthy competition. Fifteen years on, the evidence is
Against this backdrop of massive deprivation and ne- clear that vital awareness of the importance of formal ECCE
glect of youngest children, inspired by contemporary stud- has percolated from the upper middle to almost the entire
ies indicating that children’s brains are 80 percent devel- middle class comprising an estimated 28 million urban
oped by age eight, and Nobel laureate Dr. James Heckman’s households. The number of private preschools has risen
calculus that a dollar spent on professional early childhood from 15,000 in 2000 to 60,000 currently, according to es-
care and education (ECCE) saves $16 in the education con- timates of the Mumbai-based Early Childhood Association
tinuum, ab initio, EducationWorld (estb. 1999) has been of India.
stridently advocating universalization of ECCE and upgra- Your editors’ relentless advocacy of universal profes-
dation of AWCs into full-fledged pre-primary schools. sionally administered ECCE has impacted education

DECEMBER 2025 EDUCATIONWORLD 53