By any yardstick the 3rd EducationWorld Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013 held in Bangalore on January 19, was a resounding success. Perhaps more so than its predecessor global conferences (2010 and 2011) staged in Mumbai. Although the Mumbai conferences attracted greater participation from abroad — these are global conferences on a subject in which allegedly socialist India has a lot to learn from foreign countries in which governments and societies are more generous and caring about early childhood care and education — the recently concluded first-ever early childhood education (ECE) conference staged in the garden-turned-garbage city, attracted greater and more enthusiastic participation of native preschool promoters, principals and teachers. Indeed against the budgeted capacity of 200 delegates, ECE Global Conference 2013 drew over 300 from across the country. Quite obviously, ECE, hitherto an area of darkness in Indian education, is being regarded more seriously and is coming of age in our benighted republic in which infants and children are the most neglected — and vulnerable — segments of the citizenry.
The contingent of ECE experts at the Bangalore conference — staged in the ITC Gardenia, the city’s most preferred upscale hotel whose staff (under the supervision of Afairs, the Kolkata-based transnational exhibitions and events management company) provided excellent service and facilities — was also top calibre. It included Rabiatul Adawiah, chief operating officer (South-east Asia) of the Singapore-based Knowledge Universe (the world’s largest private preschools company); the Chennai-based Dr. S. Anandalakshmy, one of the country’s most respected ECE experts; Dr. Venita Kaul from Ambedkar University, Delhi; ECE pioneer Lina Ashar from Mumbai and other knowledgeable practitioners who grace this issue’s cover. Our grateful thanks to our keynote speakers, panelists and also delegates, who with their enthusiastic interventions and comments from the floor, enlivened the conference.
Another departure from past practice is that this year, your editors took the decision to report the conference immediately after its conclusion. Our previous practice was to report the conference in the second month after the event, given the time required to put the conference story together. But this year, our editorial team burned the midnight oil to piece together the cover story on an issue of utmost national importance, immediately after, when memories are fresh in the minds of delegates who attended the ECE Global Conference 2013. We believe that we haven’t compromised depth of coverage for speed. Tell us if we have. Feedback is always welcome.
The emphasis given to early childhood education and care in our cover story, is balanced by a special report feature on the sad decline of the University of Mumbai, at one time among the country’s most respected institutions of higher education. Our Mumbai correspondent Praveer Sinha, aided and abetted by managing editor Summiya Yasmeen, recounts how and why this once-great university has been reduced to its present sorry state. The lead features apart, there’s much more in this early year issue of EW. In particular check out our Parenting Education section and EW India Preschool Rankings 2012 Awards pictorial essay.
