Although a small number of families within the clued-up middle class of metropolitan India, have been registering newborns for the handful of the country’s best preschools for several decades, mainly to ease their passage into the best primary-secondaries, for the vast majority of households preschools were — and are — neighbourhood crèches or play schools in which infants learn socialisation skills and indulge in aimless play.
No longer. With a flood of research studies of the human brain indicating that the species homo sapiens absorbs its most formative influences between the ages of three-seven, early childhood education (ECE) is looming larger in the collective conscious of educators and educationists worldwide, especially in the developed countries of the West, where education is seriously researched and practiced. Even within the emerging industrial societies of India and China, the quality of preschool education for infants of aspirational middle class households has become a hot button subject. In India, following substantial liberalisation and deregulation of the country’s dirigiste, Soviet-inspired socialist economy in 1991, preschool education entrepreneurs were quick to discern the business advantage of promoting preschool chains through the franchise model in the world’s largest children’s market. Thus during the past two decades several preschool chains including EuroKids, Kangaroo Kids, Kidzee and I Play I Learn, among others, have established a national presence.
To highlight the growing importance of foundational preschool education and assist parents to choose the most suitable preschools for their children, last year EducationWorld engaged the Delhi-based market research agency C fore, which specialises in education surveys, to conduct a poll of a sample respondents base of 1,522 comprising SEC (socio-economic category) A parents (with at least one child in preschool), principals and teachers in six major cities where ECE awareness is high, to rate and rank them on ten parameters of performance including competence of teachers, classroom innovations, infrastructure, safety and hygiene and play facilities. The exercise was followed up by the EducationWorld Early Childhood Education Global Conference in Mumbai 2010. Enthusiastic public response has prompted us to repeat the exercise this year. Stand by for our EducationWorld ECE Global Conference 2011 in Mumbai — featuring a galaxy of international experts — scheduled for December 15.
Although formal preschool education is currently an exclusively urban phenomenon, it is pertinent to note that the Union government also runs 1.20 million anganwadis or crèches for infants and mothers countrywide under its Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). So far, anganwadis have served as mere early childhood nutrition and care centres. Education bureaucrats at the Centre and in the states should focus on transforming anganwadis into city-style preschools, with structured early childhood education and development curriculums. They should take a cue from preschool edupreneurs who are providing constantly improving early childhood education at all price points, and strive to emulate, rather than regulate them, as is reportedly being contemplated by the mandarins of the Union HRD ministry.
