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Early Childhood Care And Education in India PDF
The programme at the early childhood stage helps to ensure opportunities for holistic learning and growth.
The ECCE programme needs to be determined by children’s developmental and contextual needs, providing for more need based inputs and an enabling environment.
Given this need for an individualised approach, it was believed that a common ‘curriculum’ would not be appropriate for all.
However, over the years it has been observed that the practical realities are different and most of the ECCE programmes on offer currently do not have developmentally appropriate programmes for the young child.
The vacuum created by a lack of curriculum framework has resulted in its being filled with either a minimalist programme or the downward extension of the primary stage curriculum leading to overburdening the child which can have a negative impact on the child’s learning potential.
To ensure optimal development for all children, there is a need to create a planned curriculum framework, encompassing developmentally appropriate knowledge and skills, with flexibility for contextualization and diverse needs of young children.
A curriculum framework is also required to ensure that important learning areas are covered, taking care of all the developmental needs of the young child.
It also facilitates adoption of a common pedagogical approach to ensure a certain level of quality and address the widespread diversity in the ECCE programmes available for the young children in India.
The purpose of this framework is to promote quality and excellence in early childhood education by providing guidelines for practices that would promote optimum learning and development of all young children and set out the broad arrangement of approaches and experiences rather than detailed defining of the content.
A cautious approach is being adopted to not provide a detailed curriculum/syllabus which would be prescriptive and ‘delivered’ to the young children in a ‘straight jacketed manner’.
The Curriculum Framework calls attention to the common principles and developmental tasks, at the same time, respecting the diversity in the child rearing practices and contextual ECCE needs.
Each programme is expected to develop its own curriculum to meet the needs of its children, their families, the specific setting, the linguistic culture and the local community.
However, the programmes should be based on the curriculum principles and guidelines laid down in this framework.
This Framework is a dynamic document and would be continually reviewed and evolved in the light of emerging needs.
Also, with the adoption of the framework, case studies of emerging best practices will follow and learning from them would further strengthen the framework.
This Framework is firmly focussed on the needs of the child and should lead to improved child care and developmentally appropriate environment for children, leading to a positive impact on quality of learning and increased attainment of learning outcomes for children participating in ECCE programmes.
Furthermore, this framework focuses on providing guidelines for child care and early educational practices.
The other components for the holistic ECCE programme such as nutrition, health and hygiene, protection and care are to be ensured by cross reference from related policies and instruments as mentioned in the National ECCE policy.
The National ECCE Curriculum Framework comprises of broadly three sections.
• Section I consists of introduction, vision for an Indian child, rationale and theoretical foundation for ECCE.
The objectives of early childhood education; pedagogical bases and principles of early learning are laid out.
• Section II comprises of details of the goals for different domains of development, i.e. physical, language, cognitive, socio-emotional and creative and aesthetic appreciation, to be fostered to ensure holistic development of children under six years.
It comprises of suggested developmentally appropriate practices for different age groups.
• Section III focuses on implementation details such as principles of programme planning, stages of programme planning, role of parents and caregivers/ECCE teachers, essential play materials and assessment procedure etc.
FOUNDATION OF EARLY CARE AND LEARNING
The first six of life are critical years of human life since the rate of development in these years is more rapid than at any other stage of development.
Global brain research also informs us about the significance of early years for brain development.
Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) makes a positive contribution to children’s long term development and learning by facilitating an enabling and stimulating environment in these foundation stages of lifelong learning.
Parents as caregivers are critical in providing a stimulating learning environment to the child and the first two and a half to three years need not be in a formal learning environment.
The National Curriculum Framework acknowledges the significance of involvement of parents, family and community.
The National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Curriculum Framework for all children below six years of age is aligned with the Government’s vision of ECCE as spelt out in the National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Policy.
The National ECCE Curriculum Framework is informed by the Position Paper on ECCE (National Curriculum Framework, NCERT, 2005) and the curriculum detailed there under.
The purpose of this framework is to promote quality and excellence in early childhood care and education by providing guidelines for child care and early educational practices.
The framework is intended to be a guiding document for ECCE service providers across all regions.
It wishes to support to early years professionals, service providers, ECCE teachers/caregivers, communities and state governments in providing rich early stimulation and learning experiences for children from birth to pre- primary years.
This document may also be of interest to families of young children too.
Growing up in India
India has a tradition of valuing the early years of a child’s life, and a rich heritage of cultural practices for stimulating development and inculcating “sanskaras” or basic values and social skills in children.
In the past this was delivered primarily within joint families, through traditional child caring practices which were commonly shared and passed on from one generation to another.
However, there have been changes in the family as well as social context in the last few decades.
Families and communities represent vast geographic, social, cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity within the country.
Children also differ in their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive capacities.
Urban and rural communities offer different types of opportunities and face distinct challenges in providing good quality early care and learning experiences to children.
Socio –economic status as well as social and cultural diversity characterize the nature of family life and the context for growing up in India. Each child requires a safe and nurturing environment to develop optimally.
Children with special needs and their families need assistance and information regarding prognosis and early intervention in order to support optimal development of children.
Other families may also, face stresses that can compromise their ability to support their children’s early learning and need support services to assist families in their critical role as primary caregivers.
Discrimination and inequities based on gender, social identity, disability and other exclusionary factors is prevalent in the society that adds to the above problem.
The issues need to be addressed proactively to ensure universal access to integrated services towards fulfilment of right to free, universal pre-primary education.
Regardless of income, social status, geographic isolation, and other potential barriers, all children deserve and have a right to inclusive and equitable opportunities to build on their unique strengths.
In recent times many children are receiving early education and care outside the home in child care centres, preschool programs, and other community-based early learning settings.
Whether children receive early education and care in the home or the community, it is important that their early learning experiences draw on the unique strengths of their relationships with their families.
The diversity in social contexts and family structures needs to be appropriately addressed in order to bring balanced parenting, including inputs from fathers, mothers and other caregivers in the family through enabling provisions in programmes.
Strengthening capabilities of families, communities and services to ensure quality care and education for children in the early years is therefore a priority for India.
Thus, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) encompass the inseparable elements of care, health, nutrition, play and early learning within a protective and enabling environment.
It is an indispensable foundation for lifelong development and learning, and has lasting impact on early childhood development.
It is imperative to accord priority attention to ECCE and invest in it since it is the most cost effective way to break the intergenerational cycle of multiple disadvantages and remove inequity.
Investing in ECCE will undoubtedly lead to long term social and economic benefits.
| Language | English |
| No. of Pages | 85 |
| PDF Size | 2.7 MB |
| Category | Government |
| Source/Credits | wcd.nic.in |
Early Childhood Care and Education Book PDF Free Download