State of Early Childhood Education in India
President Obama remarked in the 2015 State of the Union: “It’s time we treat [childcare] like the national economic priority that it is for all of us.” Clearly, countries like USA have realized the need to begin the process of nation building from the very beginning, our children. While an average OECD country spends 0.7% (range of 0.4% — 2.0%) of its GDP on childcare and early education services, the entire budget of Women and Child Development ministry for 2015–16 is less than 0.1% of India’s GDP at INR 10,382 crore (slashed by 44% from previous year). As one of the consequences, India ranks way below China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh on child care ranking by a global body, IBFAN. Why? Maybe because in a country of a billion people, decision about priorities are made with an adult voter in mind. Clearly, our youngest citizens stand little chance in such an environment of apathy. With this background, the article aims to educate you on the context and problems plaguing the pre-school education system in India.
Firstly, how does one define pre-school education? The most common one describes Pre-school education as encompassing the well-being of 0–6 year olds. In India, this segment is further sub-divided into 0–3 year (care-based) and 3–6 year (education-based).
Investment in Pre-school education programmes have high rates of return. Cost-benefit research has shown that savings are made by reducing dropout, repetition, and special education placements for both governments and families. It has also demonstrated that children with quality Pre-school education tend to advance to higher education, obtain employment, have higher earnings as well as savings, provide higher contributions to social security, and are less likely to be on public assistance and commit crimes. The Perry Preschool study analysing a sample of Afro-American children estimated the cost/benefit ratio of 1:7 at age 27 or 1:16 through age 40. In Bolivia, a home-based early development and nutrition programme showed cost/benefit ratios between 1:2.4 and 1:3.1. The Nobel-winning economist James Heckman demonstrated that investment returns in Pre-school education are greater than those of other areas of education.
Pre-school education market is nascent, literally and figuratively. As of today, 16 crore children fall under the Pre-school category in India. If pre-school category was a country, it would be ranked 8th in the world in terms of population. As of March 2014, there are more than 13 lakh operational Anganwadi Centers in the country. A CRISIL research report has said that the pre-school business is expected to touch INR 13,300 crore by 2015–16, out of which branded pre-schools are expected to contribute about INR 4,500 crore. Further, the Indian Education Investment Report 2013, published by Franchise India estimates that the number of pre-schools in India will reach the 33,000 mark by 2015 end, reporting a growth of 26% annually. On Pre-school policy making front, the Ministry of Women and Child development (MWCD) is the nodal authority and hence, its budget is an important gauge of government’s seriousness about our children. This responsibility is shared by Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, MHRD, Ministry of Labour, and Ministry of Rural Development.
There are 3 dimensions to the problems plaguing Pre-school education in India today — Age group, Policy Orientation, and Coverage Area.
Note: Information as of June 2015, figures are estimates
Source: US International Census Bureau, Indian Census 2011, internal analysis
Each dimension and subsequently, each sub-segment is faced with a unique set of challenges but the underlying common problem remains about quality.
Over 7 crore children (~44%) are covered by the government’s ambitious Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) targeted towards rural areas and economically weaker sections. While ICDS’ planning has been complemented for its scale and reach, the execution and quality remain questionable at best. For majority of the remaining 9 crore children, the only option is private institutions (incl. NGOs) which remain fragmented, unorganized, and unregulated till date. Important government initiatives like Right to Education Act (only 6 states out of 29 have provision for pre-schools) and Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan are neglecting children below age of 6. How can children who complete grade 1 or 2 from low-income communities read or comprehend sentences in their national language or mother tongue if they have developmental delays until age 6 in physical, cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional areas and have little exposure to printed materials or books? To put things into perspective, every year of delay in setting quality improvement standards for Pre-school education is adversely affecting the lives of more than 2 crore children who enter Pre-schools each year. Given the long-term benefits like increased tax revenues, lower welfare expenditure, and lower social unrest, the cost of not acting immediately is enormous. A very conservative assumption of 0.1% rise in average income levels due to improved Pre-school education translates directly into INR 12,000 crore windfall to the nation per year.
We are already 15–30 years behind our peers like China, Singapore, USA, UK, and Nordic countries in implementation of Pre-school quality parameters. If quality gap (as compared to international peers and between states) is the one we are looking to bridge, then quality goals intuitively become the starting point. Quality goals are important to give the “big picture” or bird’s eye view of Pre-school education. They are able to consolidate political will, a key step to increasing core programme funding. Quality goals can also provide incentives for governments to improve Pre-school education leadership and strategically align resources with prioritised quality areas. At the same time, quality goals can promote more consistent, co-ordinated and child-centred services through a national framework with shared social and pedagogical objectives. They can anchor policy discussions between ministries, provide guidance for providers, direction for practitioners, purpose for students and clarity for parents (OECD, 2006).
Setting a national level quality framework for pre-schools would allow us to catch-up, if not exceed our peers in the medium term. Any framework development will have to provide for equality on the basis of mental (mentally challenged), physical (physically challenged), economic (poor), social (women, SC/ST/OBC), and religious grounds (minority institutions). These groups together form a majority of the children who will directly benefit from any improvement in Pre-school education. A step in the right direction has been made with the establishment of an ECCE council by the center. But this council is expected to start executing policy making by end-2018 according to its own timeline. So the jury is still not out on whether this exercise becomes another election promise or truly a force to shape our children and our nation’s future. Maybe entrepreneurs can help fill an important gap in the market?
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