Against the backdrop of early childhood care and education about to be — even if belatedly — accorded high importance in the imminent National Education Policy 2019, the ninth consecutive EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2019-20 survey highlighting the country’s most admired pre-primaries and their best practices, assumes special importance – Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen In the celebratory 20th anniversary issue of EducationWorld published last month, an unsparing internal jury awarded this mission-driven publication low social impact grades on several national objectives including our mission statement viz, “to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”. On this prime objective EW was awarded a mere two stars (out of a maximum five). Similarly, on other affiliated objectives such as education liberalisation advocacy, propagating VET (vocational education & training), autonomy for higher education institutions, financial autonomy for private schools and defending private budget schools etc (see https://www.educationworld.in/ew-impact-assessment/), we received modest ratings. However, the rating awarded for sustained advocacy of professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE), was a higher three stars. Perhaps a four-star rating equivalent to the score awarded for popularising credible preschool, school and private university rankings would have been more appropriate. Because since 2007 when your editors belatedly experienced an epiphany about the critical importance of ECCE in the cognitive development of children following US-based economist Dr. James Heckman’s research indicating that a dollar invested in ECCE saves $16 in the education continuum to university — for which he was co-awarded the Nobel economics prize in 2000 — EducationWorld has been in the vanguard of a growing national movement for provision of high-quality ECCE to all children in the 0-6 age group. Since then, EducationWorld has relentlessly promoted universalisation of professionally administered ECCE for youngest children, whose physical and mental well-being is of paramount importance for the emergence of this country as a global force in the 21st century. Consequently, we have also been ardent supporters of the Mumbai-based Early Childhood Association (ECA, estb.2010), a preschools affiliating organisation which prescribes minimum standards and best ECCE practices to member and socially disadvantaged preschools. Simultaneously, we have been exerting continuous pressure on government to upgrade and professionalise the country’s 1.36 million Central government-promoted anganwadis which also receive state government support by way of wages and salaries. Promoted in 1976, anganwadis are essentially nutrition centres for lactating mothers and infants which are also mandated to provide ECCE to pre-primary children. However it’s noteworthy that the 1.36 million anganwadis accommodate only 50 percent of the country’s 165 million children in the 0-6 age group. Moreover, government anganwadis are severely under-funded and under-staffed with a per child allocation of a mere Rs.2,361 per year. In a detailed calculus sent by your editors to the PMO (prime minister’s office) and the Union HRD ministry after presentation of the Union budget to Parliament and the people, for the past several years, we have been forwarding a schema for mobilising a sum of Rs.6.37 lakh crore for investment in…
