NEW DELHI: Over 1 lakh Anganwadi workers will now impart early care and education to over 10 crore beneficiary children under 3 to six years. Launching the scheme, ‘Poshan Bhi, Padhai Bhi’ Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Z Irani said they have earmarked Rs 600 crore for the training of Anganwadi workers, who till now were involved in providing nutritious food to children in these centres.
The scheme, which aims to strengthen early childhood care and education (ECCE), an important component of Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (Mission Poshan 2.0) and envisaged under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, has been touted as pathbreaking as it aims to ensure that India has the world’s largest, universal, high-quality preschool network, as suggested under NEP.
The minister said the government has started training Anganwadi workers under the scheme to transform the rural childcare centres across the country into education hubs for children aged 3 to 6. The ministry had constituted an ECCE Task Force, which submitted its report this year.
The recommendations of the task force included capacity-building through a three-day in-person training, follow-up refresher training, and fresh teaching learning material (TLM). Also, activity books and toys, and a workshop on the usage and creation of toys were held, the minister said.
“Together with state-level planning and monitoring, it also calls for community involvement in a Jan Andolan through monthly ECCE days and other activities under Poshan 2.0,” Irani added. She said that the idea is to make Anganwadi centres education imparting centres and not just limit them to centres for nutrition.
India has around 14 lakh Anganwadi centres in the country. “The audiovisual and learning material is being tested in around seven states, over 10,000 communities with over one lakh community-driven projects and activities were undertaken,” Irani said. She said over 1.5 million parents participated in this effort to test the reading material.
“The Anganwadi help workers not only assist in counselling parents so that their children can come to Anganwadi but can also help create new methodologies of engaging with children who are divyang (specially abled) with regards to early childhood development,” she said.