Resist the move to dismantle the universal public ECCE services

A R Sindhu

As in case of all basic public services, the Modi led corporate communal nexus in governance has been unleashing a war dismantling the existing public provisioning in whatever limitations that exists. The attack on public education – through the NEP-2020 and by closing down of government schools etc. is being resisted by the students’ movement as well as the teachers’ movement with the support of the common people. The attack on public provisioning of the Early Childhood Care, Education and Development (ECCE) through NEP and various other measures has not been debated much in our country.

All the efforts of Modi regime are aimed at commercialization and communalization of all spheres of education. Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is one of the most neglected, least discussed and unregulated but crucial aspects of the education.  Over 85% of a child’s cumulative brain development occurs at early childhood (0-6 yrs). During this period there are critical stages of development of the brain which influence the mental and physical health throughout the life cycle.

Nearly every fifth child in the world lives in India. India has 15.87 crore children in the age group 0-6 years. In our country, the child mortality is 0.75 crore annually, or 75 lakh children born in our country die before completing six months; 20,548 children die a day! (Source: ICDS Mission Document, Ministry of WCD, GOI). The basic reason for India’s performance in World Hunger index is the acute child malnutrition with around one third of our children under five years are stunted and underweight. Any policy on child development must address this crucial issue.

ECCE in India

ECCE encompasses the inseparable elements of development, care, health, nutrition, play and early learning in a protective environment which acts as the foundation for lifelong development. As of now, there is no legislation in India to ensure early childhood care and education to the children, the future of the country.

NEP 2020 although talk high about the “universal provisioning of quality early childhood development, care, and education must thus be achieved as soon as possible and no later than 2030” the NEP do not include the children under six years in the right to education act excluding them from guaranteed, free and compulsory ECCE.

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme in India operated through the ‘anganwadis’ or ‘the courtyard garden’ is the world’s largest ECCE Scheme. It has completed 50 years in 2025 and now covers nearly 8 crore children under six years through 14 lakh anganwadi centres. Designed with holistic approach, ICDS covers 6 core services – Care, Protection, Health, Nutrition, Early Stimulation and Pre-Schooling. The design of ICDS is based on a Rights- based approach. It is meant to cover all habitations in India and is supposed to run with the convergence of various departments like Education, Health and Panchayati Raj.

Although the design is ideal in various aspects, the basic fault in the design is that it does not recognize the role of the ECCE teachers/caregivers – the anganwadi workers and helpers – as employees/workers all women and their working conditions are deplorable. They are not considered as workers/employees, get Rs.4500 per month and Rs.2700 per month respectively as wages  and there is no social security or pension. The centre do not function for full day as an anganwadi cum crèche.

There are a few other childcare/pre-school centres under various governments/government schemes like the ECCE centres under SSA, crèches under the National Crèche scheme. There are nursery classes attached to the schools as well which provide only the pre-school education. The private sector institutions are also mainly pre-school centres– nursery schools or kinder gardens which are mostly unregulated.

NEP 2020 – Designed for Commercialization; ECCE converted to ‘Pre-school’

NEP proposes a basic change of the 10+2 structure of education from 6-18 years to 5+3+3+4 structure including children from 3-6 yrs. The curricular frame work includes the children of 0-3 yrs as well. NCERT is to develop a “National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework for ECCE” with sub frameworks for 0-3 and 3-8 yrs. The policy which do not have even a mention of the existing curriculum, syllabus, training, monitoring and evaluation developed by the NCERT and undermines the ECCE given through the around 14 lakh anganwadi centres to nearly 4 crore children of 3-6years of age in the last 45 years.

At the same time the policy mention about the anganwadis and it is proposed that “anganwadis shall be fully integrated into school complexes/clusters”. The policy proposes four types of structuresof (a) standalone Anganwadis; (b) Anganwadis co-located with primary schools; (c) pre-primary schools/sections covering at least age 5 to 6 years co-located with existing primary schools; and (d) stand-alone pre-schools.

A close reading of the policy will make it clear that if this policy is implemented, this will be the end holistic approach of overall development of the child with nutrition, health and informal education imparted to it in the neighborhood. At present over five crore children in the elementary education do not have functional literacy and numeracy. This shows the urgent need of interventions in key problematic areas of acute malnutrition, hunger, accessibility and quality of ECCE and primary education including the infrastructure and human resource etc. But the government emphasize is on the ‘school readiness’ in place of holistic development which will result in the same rote memorization/English medium based pre-schools or kinder garden fully linked to the formal school system. Many areas like age of admission, approach, the role of helpers etc., lack clarity.

Push for Pre-school from ECCE/ Anganwadis

The experience of the implementation of NEP in various states shows that it is an all out effort to shift the ECCE to the formal education system. Emphasis is given to open pre-school nurseries or KGs in primary schools. Anganwadis are asked to be merged with the schools. In our country where nearly one lakh government primary schools are closed down, this push will be helpful only to close down the anganwadis and entertain the private sector.

The NEP in each and every section proposes PPP, this time Private – Philanthropic partnership. This is nothing but withdrawal of the government from its responsibilities of providing universal free and quality education to its citizens.

Efforts to dismantle the ICDS

NEP says about malnutrition and hunger as well. “Children are unable to learn optimally when they are undernourished or unwell.” “Furthermore, research shows that the morning hours after a nutritious breakfast can be particularly productive for the study of cognitively more demanding subjects and hence these hours may be leveraged by providing a simple but energizing breakfast in addition to midday meals.”

Instead of strengthening the ICDS and MDMS with proper funds and payment to the employees, the remedy is “Hence, the nutrition and health (including mental health) of children will be addressed, through healthy meals and the introduction of well-trained social workers, counsellors, and community involvement into the schooling system.” We have our experience of the so called community involvement in Madhya Pradesh, where anganwadi workers were sked to collect five quintals of food grains per month from the community and sell three quintals of it to purchase ghee and sugar and prepare laddoos to the children!

Efforts to dismantle the ICDS

The ICDS was always deprived of adequate resources. Even the universalization was due to the public pressure and Apex court intervention. The anganwadi centres suffers various shortcomings in way of infrastructure and facilities. But, the Modi government had unleashed overall attack on ICDS by continuous budget cuts and privatisation in various ways. In its first budget in 2015-16, a drastic cut was made from Rs.18,000 crore the previous year to Rs.8000 Crores! It was for the militant struggles of the workers that we could reinstate the budget. Even during Covid pandemic the budget allocation has been cut down by 30%.

Government has been making efforts to privatise the supplementary nutrition by involving corporates and arranging packaged food in place of freshly cooked food. Government made an agreement with Vedanta which is a tax defaulter allowing then to use the space of anganwadis for its skill development programme. The government has not increased the allocation for food since 2017. The declaration in the last two budgets for anganwadi buildings and for increase in budget for food has not been implemented as the allocation was not made.

Now, the government has introduced face recognition and aadhaar and mobile linked double authentication for all right holders in the name of digitization. In the last six months nearly fifty lakh right holders were removed from the list!

Serving the Corporates

The shift from ECCE to Pre-school education and the withdrawal of public provisioning from ICDS are aimed at fast commercialization and the entry of multinational corporations capturing the ‘Indian pre-school market.’ Their market studies show ECCE/ pre-school education market in our country with over 216 million children aged under 8 years is estimated to be minimum USD 200 billion. According to IAMRC group the Indian pre-school/childcare market reached a value of US$ 3,480 Million in 2020 and expected to grow around 12% during 2021-2026.

Education being the third largest expenditure group in Indian household, there is tremendous rise in the investment in this sector by Real estate developers and foreign collaborators. For instance, Singapore based educational company Eton House with Serra International Pre-school invested Rs. 1000 million to start 100 schools by 2013 and aims to reach 1000 schools in 7 years. There are franchised/ international pre-schools as well. Tree House Education & Accessories Ltd. is acquiring 100 percent equity of Brainworks Learning Systems Pvt Ltd. Some other multi nationals in the business are Beehive Preschools and Kinder Pillar-Ivy League Schools Pvt. Ltd (US-based chain of pre-schools).A recent study shows that 15-20% pre-school market is having players like Euro Kids, Kidzee and KLAY, each having super profit margins between 25-50%.

As of now, there is no law to regulate such institutions often have poor infrastructure and low quality services with exorbitant fee structure not to mention about the working condition of the teachers and staff. As mentioned, the efforts to involve corporate houses like Vedanta and many corporate NGOs like Nandi Foundation which is an NGO run by corporate food giants, in the running of ICDS and MDMS clearly indicates the government’s intentions. There was effort from Modi I government to introduce package food by corporates in place of freshly cooked locally available food in these schemes.

The movement of the anganwadi workers and helpers developed during the last three decades with the active help of the students and teachers’ movements has been resisting the move to dismantle ICDS and fighting for strengthening the ICDS as well as for their rights as workers. We must carry forward the fight to institutionalise the ICDS@50 with proper infrastructure and budgets. The fight for the workers for their rights are inseparable from the fight for the right of every child for free, quality universal education and hoslistic development.