Nexus of Good: Rekindling hope

One of the striking features of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 is the focus on early childhood education. The Policy also recognizes the role of Anganwadi centres in imparting such education to infants before they enter Class 1. Many of these centres are today not equipped to carry out this onerous task, the absence of appropriate infrastructure being one of them. What is being attempted in this remote district, Changlang, is a move in this direction. Changlang was recently selected by the Ministry of Education, Government of India as the eighth least performing district of the country. The Ministry plans to ameliorate the performance of these poor performing districts in the next year. This is reflective of the poor quality of education at the primary school level in the district.

Changlang is the second easternmost district of the country and one of the three districts in Arunachal Pradesh affected by Insurgency. Around 1.7 lacs population spread over 4,600 sq km poses multiple challenges, including sparsely distributed resources, connectivity issues and poor monitoring. When this young IAS officer, Devansh Yadav took over as Deputy Commissioner in the district, he came across one of the common complaints raised by primary school teachers. It was poor foundational education and the lack of parent support. NIPUN BHARAT guidelines issued under the NEP served as a framework to address foundational numeracy and literacy in young children.

The district had received Rs 2,00,000 lakh per Anganwadi to construct new buildings. The NEP targets the 3-8 years age group for foundational learning. However, there are two sets of institutions that are presently tasked to handle such a group. 3-6 years age group comes under Anganwadi and 6-8 years age children are in Class 1-2 of primary schools. The district administration saw it as the perfect opportunity to converge Anganwadis and primary schools for foundational education. However, the first major obstacle was the low amount sanctioned per Anganwadi unit. Arunachal Pradesh has a high cost of construction due to geographical and logistical issues. All engineering departments that were approached conveyed their inability to complete the work at Rs 2,00,000 per unit.

To take care of the myriad of problems, the following strategy was adopted to take care of the obstacles:

Prefabricated anganwadis: Low-cost housing solutions were sought from a Kerala based NGO- Santhi Information Center. The NGO proposed low-cost pre-fabricated Anganwadis in the given amount with proper finishing and construction time of 3-5 days per unit. The design was appropriately modified to account for heavy rainfall in the region and the work was started right away. In a very short span of time, 51 pre-fabricated Anganwadis in Primary school campuses were completed. Local youth were simultaneously trained in prefabricated constructions. Other Anganwadis that did not have a building were covered under MGNREGA and Gram Panchayat funds.

Early childhood care and education: Next step was linking these new pre-fabricated Anganwadis with existing schools and starting foundational education training. Using CSR funds, standardized activity-based learning kits for the age group of 3-8 years were procured. New Delhi based Angelique Foundation helped train Anganwadis in using these kits. The traditional approach requires Class 10/12 educational qualification of Anganwadi workers. However, most of the Anganwadis in the district were educated only up to Classes 6-8. They had never engaged in pre-school education. Compared to the kindergarten classes in private schools, public school students are at a significant disadvantage even before they enter Class 1. To address this manpower related issue, Anganwadis were trained in activity-based learning. Despite being inadequately literate, Anganwadis had a deep understanding of children's needs. Hence, they readily adopted the new learning tools. Using activity kits, they became active learners rather than a passive recipient of information.

Simultaneously, primary school teachers were trained under the NIPUN BHARAT framework for Classes 1 to 5. Teach for India fellows were mobilized to cover all Anganwadi and Schools, where convergence was found feasible. This made teachers realize the importance of Anganwadis as partners in achieving key performance indicators in literacy and numeracy of the 3-8 years age group.

Once Anganwadis started functioning within school premises, multiple resource constraints like boundary wall, kitchen, manpower etc. were addressed in one go. To improve nutritional requirements two initiatives were launched:

1. Anemia-mukt Changlang: Over 10,000 Anganwadi children and 11000 primary school children were given weekly iron-folic acid supplements. Anthropometric measurements before and after intervention helped measure improvement in health indicators.

2. Nutritional kitchen gardens: Anganwadi workers were provided with farm tools & seeds to start local kitchen gardens around Anganwadis. Fencing requirements were addressed through MGNREGA and Panchayat funds. It developed a sense of ownership among Anganwadi workers and provided nutritious meals to children.

Convergence

1. Piped water supply and sanitary complexes for Anganwadis were provided through Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) funds under PHE Department.

2. Infrastructure: New construction and repair of remaining dilapidated Anganwadis was undertaken under MGNREGA and 14th/15th Finance Commission grants given to Gram Panchayats.

Other existing Anganwadis were also provided with activity-based learning kits and internal surroundings improved using designs of BaLa (buildings as learning aids). School Management committees started engaging Anganwadis to ensure the education of the 3-6 years age group was monitored and taken seriously by parents. Anganwadis are no longer associated with only take-home meals and have become centres of pre-school education & nutrition improvement within a year. An attempt is being made to keep up the momentum and adopt more such low-cost quick solutions for fulfilling the objectives outlined in the 'New Education Policy'.

What is being attempted in this remote part of the country is truly commendable. Devansh Yadav and his committed team of officers have demonstrated that existing schemes of the government can be converged to overcome the shortage of funds and deliver solutions to problems that might otherwise appear to be insurmountable. The team presents a wonderful example of Nexus of Good as the model created in this district of Arunachal Pradesh can be replicated and scaled through a public-private partnership. It will also help implement an extremely important aspect of NEP that relates to early childhood education.

Views expressed are personal