Union women and child development (WCD) minister Smriti Irani has launched the early childhood care and education (ECCE) modules for children aged 3 to 6 years enrolled in anganwadi centers adding that the Centre has started training anganwadi workers for it.
The modules called “Poshan bhi padhai bhi” have been launched in line with the national education policy (NEP) 2020 that emphasizes on early childhood care and foundational learning while highlighting that over 85% of a child’s cumulative brain development occurs prior to the age of 6.
Addressing the media during the launch, Irani said that the WCD ministry constituted an ECCE Task Force and it has already submitted its report and recommended training anganwadi workers in the module.
“Its recommendations included capacity-building through a 3-day in person training, follow up refresher training, fresh Teaching Learning Material (TLM) including activity books and toys, and a workshop on usage and creation of toys,” she said.
The WCD minister said that the idea is to make anganwadi centers education imparting centers and not just limit them as centers for nutrition.
There are around 14 lakh anganwadi centers in the country catering to 10,02,60,464 beneficiaries.
Irani said that ₹600 crore are being proposed to be allocated for the training process under Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi.
“The audio visual and learning material is being tested in around seven states, and over 1.5 million parents participated in this effort to test the material… The ministry under the Office of the Secretary WCD also did conferences virtually and physically met state government representatives to ensure that the training programme that is to be prepared with regards to ‘Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi’ module is not done in isolation by the government,” she said.
Meanwhile, for children with special needs, learning material will be prepared in collaboration with the ministry of social justice and ministries in states.
“The anganwadi help workers not only assist in counselling parents so that their children can come to anganwadi but can also help create new methodologies of engaging with children who are divyang (specially abled) with regards to early childhood development,” she said.
Courtesy The Hindustan Times
