Every child coming into this world is eager to learn. The First Five years of life are a time of enormous growth of linguistic, conceptual, social, emotional, and motor competence. Right from birth...
Every child coming into this world is eager to learn. The First Five years of life are a time of enormous growth of linguistic, conceptual, social, emotional, and motor competence. Right from birth a healthy child is an active participant in that growth, exploring the environment, learning to communicate, and beginning to construct ideas about how things work in the surrounding world. The pace of learning, however, will depend on an engaging, encouraging and supporting environment. There can be no doubt now that the environment in which a child grows up has a powerful impact on how the child develops and what the child learns.
Envisioning a world free of poverty and hunger, to reduce inequality, and to combat climate change, United Nations has set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to be achieved world-over by 2030, in which SDG 4 is concerning access to Education For All, which recognizes education as the most powerful tool of empowerment. As education starts the day, a child comes in this world, Nobel laureate Dr. James Heckman enunciated an important principle of the present day education that-
“Early learning begets later learning and early success breeds later
success, just as early failure breeds later failure”,
Based on this principle, the UNESCO Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report proclaimed that-
“Early Childhood Care And Education (ECCE) is the bedrock of
Education For All initiative.”
India joined this Global Initiative by bringing Early Childhood Care And Education (ECCE) into one of its priorities by incorporating it in the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP 2020) as -
“Universal provisioning of quality early childhood development, care, and education
must be achieved (in our country) as soon as possible,
and no later than 2030”.
The above mentioned policy initiatives amply clarify that ensuring world class quality in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is the priority set by our government as an essential initiative for nation building in which everyone is invited to join hands.
Before implementation of National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP 2020), country had adopted 10+2 structure of school system with formal education starting at the age of 6 in Class 1. ...
Before implementation of National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP 2020), country had adopted 10+2 structure of school system with formal education starting at the age of 6 in Class 1. With stiff competition for admission in good schools, children below the age of 6 were sent to ‘Preparatory’ Schools, which are known by various names – Kinder-garden school, nursery schools, play schools etc., with their main function being preparing the child to beat the competition for admission in Class 1 and secure admission in a good school. ‘Preparatory’ Schools, which may be called PRESCHOOLS now, laid much emphasis on rote learning, adopting book based curricula to strengthen ‘3R’ capabilities.
With implementation of NEP 2020, schooling pattern is now changed to 5+3+3+4 pattern, wherein for the first time, provision for Early Childhood Education for children in the age group of 3 to 6 years has been made in the first 5 years of schooling pattern, as Foundational Stage. These five years of early schooling have been bracketed together based on the scientific study that between 3 and 8 years, the pedagogical tools for training the developing brain in a child bear similarity and for which, the pedagogy has to change from ‘rote’ learning to ‘experiential’ learning. This shift in pedagogy will lay the foundation for a “future ready education”, resulting in adults who will become strong pillars of the nation as effective leaders, logical and critical thinkers, entrepreneurs and innovators in all walks of life, equipped with capacity for Lifelong Learning, so badly lacking in our present day educational system.
For successful realization of the objective of NEP 2020 in context of ECCE, there is not only an urgent need to develop scientifically appropriate pedagogy for preschools, but also urgently train teachers in the new methodology of teaching at ECCE level, which is badly lacking in the country at present, as identified in a country-wide survey conducted by Ambedkar University, Delhi in collaboration with National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), that –
“Early Childhood Stage requires creation of a learning environment for children which is joyful, playful and developmentally appropriate. Preparation of teachers for this stage would therefore require teacher educators who possess a sound educational philosophy of ECCE besides an understanding of its specialized content and methodology. Since this understanding is still in the process of evolution through research and development world over, involvement of experts from higher learning institutions in teacher education for ECCE is the urgent need of the hour.”
Mrs. Olive Myrtle Massey, an educationist, dedicated to the cause of child care and education, started a school for children in Allahabad under the aegis of St. Xavier Christian Society, back in 19...
Mrs. Olive Myrtle Massey, an educationist, dedicated to the cause of child care and education, started a school for children in Allahabad under the aegis of St. Xavier Christian Society, back in 1978. Dr. M. Massey, the present Secretary of the Society, has been in the field of higher education since 1973 and served as teacher and later as the Principal of Ewing Christian College, Allahabad, for more than seventeen years. During this course, he was instrumental in establishing a Teachers’ Training College and contributed in developing e-learning platform to make the technologically enhanced learning accessible to all overcoming the restriction of time and space.
St. Xavier Christian Society, with its more than 40 years of experience in the field of Early Child Education, has now decided to contribute actively and effectively in realizing the vision of NEP 2020 in the field of ECCE, by providing quality early childhood education by replicating its rich experience in this field, through a chain of preschools as franchise under the brand name of ST. MARK’S INTERNATIONAL PRESCHOOL. The Society has also established OLIVE MEMORIAL ECCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, which engages in Research and Development in Early Childhood Learning Pedagogy and Teachers’ Training Programme, in technical collaboration with OMEGA-HI EDUSOLVERS Pvt. Ltd., a company engaged in providing online/offline solutions in the field of education from preschool level up to higher education level.
ECCE stands for EARLY CHILD CARE & EDUCATION. While the above programmes are focused on EARLY CHILD EDUCATION (ECE), with intervention in the field of EARLY CHILD CARE is also planned by the Society, for which occasional seminars, symposia and workshops will be organized for parents, guardians and other stakeholders and ARTICLES and LINKS for ECCE with focus on both prospective mother and child care will be kept, thereby supporting government initiative of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) through our initiative, for which, information on a regular basis will be provided through the link PARENTING TIPS ( LINK) on our website.
To bring about a paradigm shift in the way Early Childhood Care and Education is being imparted in the country, with a vision to build holistic personality of its students, capable to take up chall...
To bring about a paradigm shift in the way Early Childhood Care and Education is being imparted in the country, with a vision to build holistic personality of its students, capable to take up challenges in life with confidence and build a society in future as envisioned in the preamble of our constitution and fully incorporated in the National Education Policy 2020 i.e. a society based on Equality, Justice, Liberty and Brotherhood, which itself is deeply rooted in the rich ethos of our ancient culture and traditions.
