Early Childhood Education: Issues and Challenges – An Institutional Perspective

Abstract

Early childhood education also known as preschool or pre-primary education is provided in settings such as Nursery schools, Kindergarten, Anganwadis, Montessori schools, etc.  Some are located in the private sector while the Government sponsors some. Pre-primary education is critical for establishing a child's social, emotional, and overall well-being. Typically designed for 3 to 5-year-old children there are varying standards. It is on this foundation that the child's future learning and adaptability are built that it deserves serious attention. The importance of pre-primary education is recognized worldwide nevertheless universal coverage has not been achieved. According to the UNICEF Global Report on Early Childhood Education, which has come recently, world over there were at least 175 million children aged 3 to 6 years old who were not enrolled in school. The early years of a child's life build the basis for lifelong growth, and children who fall behind in these early years often never catch up with their peers, leaving them more likely to drop out of school and fail to reach their full potential. This points to the significance of probing into its causes and reflecting on solutions to overcome them. Going into the causes we find certain factors perpetuating this. Such are Economic backwardness, social backwardness, Institutional backwardness, and Administrative Deficiencies. The former two are pitfalls of a weak institutional system while the latter two reflect an institutional breakdown. Yet there are interlinkages between the two. Economic backwardness arises from the great divide between the rich and the poor and consequent power dynamics leading to increased marginalization of the poor. They lose the capability to encash opportunities for fair standards of living, education, adequate nutrition, appropriate housing, and healthy surroundings. Linked to it is the social backwardness where the morbidity becomes concentrated in the poor. Inadequacy of infrastructure and paucity of teaching-learning methods carefully tailor-made to needs, skilled manpower, motivators, and losing focus are major institutional factors. The state vested with the responsibility to intervene in high-priority areas lagging in progress or developmental needs through special programs and projects time to time suffer pitfalls pointing to administrative deficiencies as systemic factors. This paper attempts to bring out the issues and concerns of pre-primary education from an institutional perspective.