What does the NEP suggest for Early Childhood Care and Education?
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
June 11, 2019
While the three-language proposal of the draft NEP 2019, managed to hog all the limelight over the past one-week, other aspects of the draft NEP were not given the due discussion space. Here we discuss what the NEP has to say about ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education).
While the three-language proposal of the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019, managed to hog all the limelight over the past one-week, other aspects of the draft NEP were not given the due discussion space.  One such is the draft NEP’s focus on ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education). There are few land mark proposals made in the draft NEP, which could have a major impact on the Early Childhood Care & Education space in India.
The story so far: Lack of focus on education component of ECCE
The draft NEP has made certain important observations about ECCE before coming up with their proposals.
These observations made by the Draft NEP committee, has highlighted many of the practical issues that are plaguing the ECCE scenario in India. One of the key aspects is around the lack of focus in providing cognitive stimulation and school readiness in the young children.  The ‘care’ component of ECCE has however performed better and has found some success in different parts of the country.
What is the Vision for appropriate Early childhood intervention as per draft NEP?
Based on these observations, the draft NEP has come with the following with regards to ECCE:
This suggestions & proposals made in the draft NEP vary greatly with the existing setup. The existing setup is like the following.
ECCE in India: An evolving Story
The proposals in the draft NEP, while attempting to point towards a new direction, is an extension of a continued development of ECCE in India.
Let’s take a quick look at India’s ECCE story:
As can be seen, there policy framework surrounding early child hood education has seen a progressive growth – recognizing the need for pre-primary classes to including an integrated approach with focus on care and education. At least to the extent of the policy making, the idea seemed to be in the right direction.
Child Health & Nutrition also do not provide a positive picture
While the ASER report 2018, reveals an acknowledged fact about lower quality of education in India, and specifically highlighting the lack of school readiness among pre-primary children, the numbers regarding the health and nutrition of children also do not show a positive picture.
This is in contrast to the general notion that ‘care’ component has been a success story.
Here are few statistics from the ‘Children in India 2018’ report recently released  by the Ministry of Statistics & Program Implementation (MoSPI) which reflect the current state of Child Wellness in India.
While a comparison over the decades does show a marked improvement, a lot is yet to be achieved even on the health and nutrition front.
Draft NEP: Early steps in right direction – Implementation would be the key
This then brings us to the larger question – What difference would NEP 2019 offer?
As with the earlier commission reports and studies, the intent and understanding are in the right place. However, the application & execution would hold the key.
The draft NEP 2019, did identify the following immediate actions in this direction:
A time bound action plan on these aspects is vital to deliver on the objectives.  Furthermore, addressing the ‘care’ aspect of ECCE in view of the new framework will also be critical.