Fwd: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Strategies to Increase Focus on EarlyChildhoodCare and Development. Reply by 12 March 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jigisha Shastri <jigishastri@yahoo.co.in>
Date: Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Strategies to Increase Focus on EarlyChildhoodCare and Development. Reply by 12 March 2010
To: Education Community <se-ed@solutionexchange-un.net.in>

Dear All,

It is not a debatable issue that all children from birth to eight, irrespective of where they are, should have a right to stimulating, healthy and enabling environment. By now, we have enough evidence to suggest how important the early years are. It's long term financial gains to a country are also proven. The very interesting brain development research too reinforces this.

It's implementation is definitely challenging in such a diverse context as ours. Lot of States are developing tracking mechanism for monitoring children's health and education. We should also advocate for including growth and development indicators.

Whether coming from the Government or public funds, the health, education and other services will have to be strengthened. It will also be essential to reach out to parents at the community level. The anganwadi workers in the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program are so over burdened with multiple roles that we would have to think beyond that and come up with other solutions. Maybe identify child development community workers who liaison with primary health care systems, education systems and homes.

In a diverse context as ours, we should also be thinking about (though it has begun) innovative ways of reaching out to children and not just depend on center based programs. No program for children should ignore the family and community. Only if it is embedded in children's own context, taking the families and communities along, will it succeed. Quality standards should be defined and used. There should be a strong monitoring system to ensure that these standards are met.  Some form of licensing for existing and new ECCE programs is also a must.

We have been talking about these issues in almost all ECCE forums. Maybe we also need to take this issue to the public as well as include other professionals in our advocacy movement. It is so heartening to note that we have begun this debate with Dr. Kaul's initiative. I hope too that we all together come up with some action plans.

Regards,

Jigisha Shastri

M.S.University of Baroda,

Vadodara

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Moderator's Note: Dear Members, after a long time, we are happy to initiate a discussion on Early Childhood Care and Education for members' advice. As all of us would agree, this issue is of significance, given the importance of 0-6 years, in a persons' life. The kind of developmental and early learning opportunities as well as nutrition and health inputs a child is able to receive at this age, has a lot of bearing on her future.  

We are happy to announce that Venita Kaul, a known specialist in the area of Early Childhood Care and Development has agreed to be the Guest Moderator for this discussion. Venita Kaul recently retired as Senior Education Specialist from World Bank, India office and has written extensively on the educational and developmental needs of this age group. Even after her retirement from the World Bank, her focus is maintained on ECCD. We are sure members would be forthcoming in sharing their advice and suggestions for better strategization of ECCD in the country.

We look forward to your active participation.  

Shubhangi

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Dear Members, 

I work for Center for Early Childhood Education and Development (CECED), which is located in Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). CECED's mission is to contribute to the national goals of social justice and equity by advocating for and promoting every child's right to a sound foundation for life, through contextually appropriate and inclusive ECED and to place ECED in the forefront of policy formulation and effective programme implementation.

After a long battle, education has become the fundamental right for children in the age group of 6-14 years. However, the Right to Education Act has left out the very important age group of children below 6 years. The reason given is the fact that 86^th Constitutional Amendment and its Article 21A through which right to education was accepted as a fundamental right, talks about children between the age group of 6-14 only.

Therefore, the Act clearly excludes and thus violates the right of the 0-6 and 14 to 18 year old children. As a Bill flowing out of the Amendment, it is clear that the Bill can not go beyond Article 21A, which makes it imperative that the 86^th amendment must be re-amended to correct this anomaly, and when that happens, the change needs to be reflected in the corresponding Act at that point of time. 

However, this omission has resulted in the exclusion of 17 crore children of 0-6 years age group from their entitlement to education as their fundamental right, which is a major cause of concern, given that this age is now empirically established as the most important and formative stage of a person's life. Given this concern, the issue of inclusion of children below 6 years in the Right to Education bill is being raised in several forums.   

In the context of the above, we invite members to share their views on how they believe this important age group and its entitlements should be catered to.

We wish to hear your advice on the following:

• Should it be a justifiable right for only 3-6 year olds and that also to center based Early Childhood Education? Or should it be a right to a stimulating, healthy and enabling environment for all children, from birth to 6 years no matter where they are located? If it is the latter, what kind of government's commitment and public provisions would define this right operationally?
• If it should be only for 3 to 6 year olds and through a center based provision, what steps would be needed to ensure access to every child, given the wide variations in quality? If it is not conceptualized as institution/center based ECCD, but more holistically, what would be the monitoring mechanisms to ensure that every child's right to sound ECCE is fulfilled?
• Should there be a separate act for the right to education and development of 0-6 age group? Or should it be part of the Right to Education Act, given that the nodal Ministries for the two are different (for elementary education it is the Ministry of Human Resource Development and for ECCE it is the Ministry of Women and Child Development

Your inputs and advice will strengthen the advocacy and efforts of diverse sets of people in the area of ECCD and would also give us a clear direction to design our own activities and efforts as a Centre dedicated to early childhood care and development

Regards,

Venita Kaul

Center for Early Childhood Education and Development (CECED)

Ambedkar University,

Delhi

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