The transformation of the kind envisaged in the headline is possible only when accompanied by the national leadership’s vision. Given this, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council’s report on ‘The State of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in India’ is a step in the right direction. The best interest of the child must become a national pursuit and a national priority. There are two aspects to this – the what and the how. The ‘what’ is a matter of policy and the ‘how’ is a matter of technology. Let’s delve into both.
The ‘What’ of ECCE
In order to keep the child at the centre of the discussion, and ensuring that Early Childhood Children Education or ECCE receives due attention from all sectors and government departments, the primacy of child development has to rest at the highest echelons of government.
Here are a few thoughts:
• ECCE as National Duty: Child development and child rights must be categorised as National Duty. The primacy of DUTY in national and social consciousness will ensure that adequate time, care, involved attention and liberal investments are channeled towards child development, including all relevant ministries, MNREGA, crèches, state government health schemes, labour welfare, etc;
• Implement the FLN Index: The fragmented framework and issues of lack of universality in standards in ECCE monitoring and coordination can be addressed by laying the groundwork for the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) Index. Implementing this would also necessitate the creation of a statutory body to lay down ‘minimum universal standards for quality of services, facilities and infrastructure to be put in place across all schemes and provisions relating to ECCE.’ Radical structural changes have to be called for to fill existing fault lines.
• Set the Right Expectations: Execution of this comprehensive approach can also be applied to the broader context of the ECCE ecosystem by launching a massive awareness and understanding of ECCE and pre-school amongst parents, community etc. with a focus on nature + nurture. Along with parent-family and community mobilisation, traditional knowledge which has scientific basis must also be documented. Existing systems can be used better.
For example, the revised Mother and Child Protection Card is the tool which simply explains the care and development milestone so that the workers can use it for counseling caregivers on ECCE days, during home visits or while conducting a session on ECCE at the anganwadi centres once a week for 0-3 years, during monthly village health, sanitation and nutrition days, and for sessions on ECCE for 3-6 years as platforms of parental engagement.
• Standardise Elements: The time period clearly specified for Early Childhood Children Education is the foundational learning continuum of 0 to 8 years and this must be commonly understood by the entire sector. ECCE is cumulative and continuum, we must remove linearity in the curriculum, and emphasise that learning is spiral in nature; else it would lead to a cumulative deficit in learning. The present crisis in reading, comprehension and understanding among children, as indicated by ASER, is but a reflection of this. Across the board, the ECCE delivery ecosystem must implement playful and invigorating methods and implement a competent curriculum that propagates and promotes knowledge, capability and practices with supportive and enabling provisions.
• Involve Senior Citizens: A community we tend to ignore are the elderly. They have so much to offer in terms of time and knowledge and seek nothing but companionship in return. They can be involved in a range of child care practices such as storytelling, folk and familiar songs, stimulating graphics, involving folk artists and crafts persons and natural scientific phenomena to play, enthrall and enjoy together with each child, in the spirit of ‘no one to be left bereft.’ By interacting with the elderly, children can also learn good values and become responsible citizens.
• Build Capacity: ECCE is a service provided by a system of educators and caregivers. Strengthening institutional capacity, partnerships and voluntary action groups with a network of ECCE resource platforms/centres at national and state levels and/or piloted at district level can go a long way. Parental counseling services must also be enhanced and invigorated with the use of IPC tools and technology.
The ‘How’ of ECCE
None of the above can be implemented without universal access to technology. As per the ‘Remote Learning Reachability Report’ by UNICEF (2020), approximately only a quarter of households (24 per cent) in India have access to the Internet. This gap further widens when assessed across rural-urban areas, and genders. This digital divide takes on a few forms, such as:
1. Lack of digital devices: According to the State of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Report, only a handful of states/UTs have more than half of all primary schools with the requisite infrastructure.
2. Lack of internet access: Several states and UTs have inadequate internet access. This is further complicated by challenges such as regular power outages and obsolete hardware.
3. Lack of appropriate digital content: We are not talking about open systems like YouTube here. Digital content has to be graded and made age appropriate. It also has to be unlocked on the basis of successive learning outcomes. There exists an acute scarcity of grade appropriate content for primary grade children in their state languages. Moreover, most content emphasises rote learning pedagogy, with little interactivity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Intensive efforts are needed to focus on research-based practices contextualised for India. Complete revision of textbooks and other resources, aligned to the balanced approach to literacy as recommended by NIPUN Bharat guidelines.
4. Lack of curriculum based teacher training: Teachers and parents need to be made technologically literate. Capacity building on this front can greatly enhance learning outcomes.
5. Irregular assessment mechanisms: For the longest time, report cards have been dreaded by students who get ‘branded’ as smart or duffer instantaneously. Compare this to a medical report — if you have high blood pressure, you’re asked to reduce salt. You’re not branded an ‘idiot’ for life. ‘Assessment works only if it is followed by a prescription.’ Now India has a very rich ‘Gurukul’ tradition. Assessments have always been formative. Educators work to figure out who understands the teaching point of a lesson, who has mastered a new concept, who needs extra help. The best formative assessment happens naturally as teachers walk around the room and listen in on student conversations or examine their classwork after the bell rings. However, technology has taken assessments a step further. It is now possible to:
• Assess every students’ progress in detail.
• Unlock successive levels of learning for students. There can be a minimum threshold but for a handful of eager students, additional levels of learning can be unlocked.
• Run an algorithm that spots ‘student performance’ trends in a teacher’s classroom over the years. Patterns of weaknesses in students can offer input for teacher training. More lessons and practice can be offered to students in their area of weakness.
• Access an unbiased progressive assessment for each child across multiple cognitive and social parameters. Specific experts from outside can also be called in to fill the gaps.
• Offer a ‘diagnostic’, ‘non-judgmental’ progress report to parents.
Technology can create an assessment algorithm that joins all elements of the ecosystem into a continuous feedback loop. It also allows teachers to train themselves further — their professional growth is something we have missed to factor into ECCE. Technology can also be used to assess the health of the system. EdTech is critical to joining the journey between teachers, parents, students administrators and the community at large.
Essentially, this is all about bridging the gaps in ‘Rights and Duties’ and understanding that the duty of all stakeholders is to provide the right or optimal growth media for children.
Ashish Jhalani recently co-authored ‘The State of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in India’ report released by the PM’s Economic Advisory Council. He is also the MD, Square Panda India, and Co-Founder of the Early Learner Neuroscience Foundation. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Read all the Latest Opinion News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment