Early Childhood Education

The early years (0 to 8 years) are the most extraordinary period of growth and development in a child’s lifetime. The foundations of all learning are laid during these years. 

Getting the foundations right yields significant future benefits: better learning in school and higher educational attainment, resulting in major social and economic gains for society.

Research shows that high-quality early learning, early childhood education, and early childhood development (ECD) programmes help reduce the likelihood of dropout and repetition and improve outcomes at all levels of education.

The Government of India’s main delivery platform for pre-school education is the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a centrally-sponsored and state-administered early childhood development programme, with pre-school education as one of the six basic services provided (in addition to immunization, health check-up, referral, food supplementation, growth monitoring and health and nutrition education) through 1.37 million anganwadi centres.

In 2013, the Government of India adopted the National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Policy in recognition of the importance of investing in early childhood development, including early childhood education (ECE), and its impact on lifelong development and learning, as well as on breaking the intergenerational cycle of inequity and disadvantage. 

A National ECCE Curriculum Framework and Quality Standards accompany the Policy.

Surveys have indicated a high level of enrolment, with almost 8 out of 10 children aged 3-6 years old enrolled in some ECCE programme. 

There are wide variations across states (Uttar Pradesh has the lowest participation at 43.7 per cent, and Karnataka the highest at 86.6 per cent).

Of those enrolled, nearly half are in the private sector, a much higher share in urban areas. Most children from the lowest wealth quintile (51 per cent) attend anganwadi centres, while most children in the highest wealth quintile (62 per cent) attend private facilities.

In July 2020, the Ministry of Education released the new National Education Policy, which includes ECCE from age 3. 

The policy states, "Universal provisioning of quality early childhood development, care, and education must thus be achieved as soon as possible, and no later than 2030, to ensure that all students entering Grade 1 are school-ready."

The three years of ECCE and early primary grades (Classes 1 and 2) are proposed as a continuum of learning and referred to as the foundational stage of school. 

The NEP 2020 recommends four models for implementing quality ECCE: anganwadi centres in communities, anganwadi centres located within school premises, pre-primary sections in schools, and standalone pre-schools.

As ample global evidence shows, when children enter primary school directly without quality pre-primary education – and thus without school readiness – it increases the likelihood that they will drop out and not learn to their potential.

Evidence from the Indian Early Childhood Education Impact Study (IECEI) 2017 demonstrates that when children have completed a quality early childhood education programme, they are more likely to achieve higher learning levels, especially in the early primary grades.

Since March 2020, anganwadi centres have been closed due to COVID-19. 

During this time, anganwadi workers have reached out to parents through social media platforms, made home visits, and, while distributing supplementary nutrition, shared resources such as a monthly calendar of activities and videos of songs, stories, and rhymes to ensure continuity of learning through play.

In the context of COVID-19, the importance of parents' roles in supporting young children's early learning has emerged as a critical area for family support. 

This increased parental engagement in playful activities needs to be sustained.  

UNICEF’s focus will be on strengthening systems to improve on the provision of quality ECE in line with the National Education Policy 2020 and the National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Policy adopted in 2013.

This calls for promoting inclusive and equitable development and learning opportunities for all children ages 3 to 6, as well as for SDG 4, Target 4.2.

This would include support for school readiness (covering all three dimensions, including children’s readiness for school, schools’ readiness for children, and families’ and communities’ readiness for school by supporting learning through play activities at home and getting children ready for school), and transition from ECE to early grade learning.

UNICEF will support the implementation of recommendations under the NEP 2020 to improve children’s access to quality foundational learning from pre-primary, including the revision and development of an early childhood education curriculum and a school readiness programme, in partnership with NCERT, civil society, and the private sector.