By 2030, India will host a massive population of 600 million youth below the age of 25 — the worlds youngest population. This can be an asset and valuable human capital, provided these young people are educated, trained and skilled. To attain these objectives, we need to start from the foundation level i.e, early childhood — conception to eight years of age. Following breakthroughs in neuroscience research in the early years of the new millennium, its now well-established that children’s brains are almost fully developed by the time they attain eight years of age.

To enable delivery of professionally administered ECCE to Indias’ youngest children, a high-quality ECCE National Curriculum Framework is a necessary precondition. Global ECCE frameworks such as the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children, USA), EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage, UK), Te Whariki (New Zealand) and ACECQA (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority) have been adopted successfully not only in the countries where they were formulated, but also worldwide.

Some auguries are good. The pioneer Early Childhood Association (ECA) of India, which has a membership of over 3,000 preschools countrywide, has formed a think-tank to propose a model ECCE curriculum framework. Some state governments including Maharashtra have also developed draft ECCE frameworks but they are inadequate and fail to address the development and learning needs of youngest children. Firstly, the word ‘education in early childhood education needs to be replaced by ‘development. The curriculum framework must focus on the developmental needs, not ‘education needs of young children and the approach needs to be individualised and contextualised across private preschools, balwadis, anganwadis and other ICDS programmes.
Children across all economic strata, social and cultural settings have the same developmental and learning needs. We need a common pedagogy that will address diversity. The curriculum framework needs to provide broad teaching-learning approaches and experiences rather than detailed academic content.

The ECA think-tank of which I am vice president, has proposed that the focus of preschools should not be on getting children ready for primary school. The focus in the formative years needs to be on development of concepts and cognitive skills rather than ‘readiness for primary school.

The early years learning curriculum shouldn’t be a downward extension of the primary curriculum which prematurely burdens children with learning the 3 Rs — reading, writing and arithmetic. The curriculum framework should draw upon global ECCE frameworks such as NAEYC and EFYS to define best practices and enable the holistic development of youngest children.

Its also very important that we involve experienced early childhood educators, leaders and teachers who have ground-level experience of interacting with young children when drafting the National ECCE Curriculum Framework. Unfortunately, all existing ECCE curriculum frameworks have been prepared by committees dominated by academics and bureaucrats of the Union/state women and child development ministries.

ECA has been persistently demanding that the Union and state governments include all stakeholders from the private preschool sector as well as those involved with balwadis, anganwadis, ICDS to design an ECCE curriculum framework and policies. People working with children at ground zero level need to be included as their expertise is important for managing diversity and contextualising curriculums. A top-down approach is unlikely to yield good results.

My recommendations for effective actualisation of an ECCE National Curriculum Framework are:

• Appoint a separate ECCE ministry and minister at the Central and state levels

• Set up an Early Child Development (ECD) ministry at the Centre to lead the design and implementation of a National ECCE Curriculum Framework across private and public preschools

• Ensure convergence among government departments to implement different schemes for children in the 0-6 age group

• Address grievances of ECCE teachers

• Establish an e-governance system to monitor and facilitate reporting and documentation of all preschools under the new NECCE (National Early Childhood Care & Education) Policy framework

• Promote convergence and collaboration between private and government preschools

A high-quality National ECCE Framework which focuses on the developmental needs of children and individualisation, will help preschool children transit smoothly into primary school. Most importantly, the framework should be a continuously evolving document allowing for contemporary best global ECCE practices to be included and adopted.

Moreover, the reason why the best curriculum frameworks worldwide are successful is because implementation is regularly monitored. State governments and/or ECA needs to be empowered to ensure effective implementation of the National ECCE Curriculum Framework across all public and private preschools countrywide.

(Divya Punjabi is culture custodian of the 100-plus Kangaroo Kids preschools and Billabong high schools countrywide)