Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru) After the national education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandated reconfiguration of the 10+2 primary-secondary schooling system into a new 5+3+3+4 continuum formally integrating early childhood care and education (ECCE) into elementary education, several states across the country have begun the process of integrating three years of early childhood education by introducing kindergarten sections in composite primary/secondary government schools and/or upgrading anganwadis — Central/state government-promoted nutritional centres for newborns and lactating mothers — into pre-primary schools. In the southern state of Karnataka (pop.69 million), an initiative to upgrade 20,000 (of a total 62,580) anganwadis into pre-primaries to make them ‘NEP compliant’ was announced by the state’s BJP government in 2022. A year later, a new Congress government was voted into power in the legislative assembly election of May 2023. Fortunately, although it has rejected and scrapped statewide implementation of NEP 2020 legislated by the BJP government at the Centre, it has continued to upgrade the state’s anganwadis. Indeed, according to some ECCE educators, the state’s Congress government has ventured beyond upgrading anganwadis, and permitted 262 composite government schools to start kindergarten sections (LKG and UKG) in 2023-24. With these KG sections running successfully, on June 11, the state’s education ministry issued an order to start pre-primary/KG classes in an additional 1,008 government primary schools in the Kalyana Karnataka region (educationally backward districts of Bidar, Kalaburagi, Raichur, Yadgir, Ballari, Vijayanagara, and Koppal) and 578 schools in other districts. However, this latest government initiative has riled the state’s 69,000 anganwadi workers who fear loss of employment. They apprehend that parents will enrol youngest children for pre-primary classes in government schools rather than in anganwadis. Simultaneously, this initiative of the state government has escalated simmering tension between the education ministry and the women and child development (WCD) ministry as government schools fall under the former’s jurisdiction and anganwadis under WCD. Reacting, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has ordered chief secretary LK Atheeq to initiate parleys between the two ministries and arrive at a workable solution. On June 24, a meeting was called by the chief minister between Madhu Bangarappa, minister for school education and literacy, and Laxmi Hebbalkar, minister of WCD. After these parleys, the CM’s office announced that the education ministry has been directed not to start any new pre-primaries in government schools beyond the already sanctioned 2,786, and that a committee of experts will soon be constituted to chalk out a plan to upgrade the state’s anganwadis to deliver equivalent quality early years education. But the challenge of transforming anganwadis into pre-primaries is that the overwhelming majority of anganwadi workers are class X secondary school-leavers with no formal training in early childhood education. “Anganwadis were promoted under the Centre’s Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in 1976 and entrusted with five responsibilities — immunisation of children, provision of nutrition, provision of health checkups, health/nutrition education and pre-primary education. Until NEP 2020 was legislated, no government emphasised the education function of anganwadis. Now they want anganwadi workers to transform overnight into early childhood teachers…
