Nexus of Good: Trailblazing endeavour

This young IAS officer, Nalini Atul, did it and deservedly won the Nexus of Good Annual Award, in 2024, for presenting a replicable model of Early Childhood Children Education (ECCE). This is an initiative aimed at developing and implementing an effective Curriculum for the foundational stage (3-6 years) in line with the objectives of NEP and laying the foundation of ECCE in AWCs of Koppal District. This is probably the only such comprehensive and sound principles initiative in the field of ECCE which keeps health and nutrition at par with education and provides a new vision for future Anganwadi centres as centres for holistic development of children to ensure “equality of opportunity to all children”. Evidence of this claim is that many states (Rajasthan, Meghalaya, UP, Chhattisgarh, and AP) have visited and expressed their willingness to implement this initiative.

The World Bank’s 2019 report “The Changing Nature of Work” cautions that as adults, today’s schoolchildren will work in jobs not yet invented. The NEP 2020 observes that we are currently in a learning crisis, and many children are going through our schooling system without being able to learn the basic skills of literacy and numeracy.

The challenge is to develop a curriculum that ensures children not only learn but more importantly learn how to learn so that every child born in India can get the opportunity to engage with learning that is meaningful, contextually relevant, and enabling, and helps them realise their full potential.

Under ECCE, education skill and learning competency weigh 40 per cent, and 60 per cent importance is laid on health and nutrition.

Given the context of Anganwadi workers’ educational background and the inadequacy of pre- and in-service training provided in the ECE component, it is imperative to build AWTs’ capacity as ECE facilitators and also provide them with the hand kits for the same. Supervisors have a key role in mentoring AWTs and there is a need to build the skills of supervisors as trainers and mentors. Inbuilt capacity within the ICDS system from CDPO to supervisor is deemed important in providing support to AWTs. Thus, it was concluded that for the AWTs to incorporate the PSE component and perform well, they needed to be adequately trained with sufficient supervision and guidance.

ECE is imparted to the children of the 3–6 years age group. ECE, most popularly known as Pre-School-Education (PSE), is the most joyful play-way daily activity, visibly sustained for 3.5 to 4 hours a day as per ECDS/NEP//NCF/SCF. Present experiments of Koppal are pilot ECCE programmes in line with the ECDS/NEP/NCF/SCF for developing a holistic curriculum for the foundational stage which can then be proposed as State Curriculum by the State-level Curriculum Committee. Nalini Atul is Chairperson for the State-level Curriculum and Playing Learning Materials Committee.

The innovation proposes a new vision for future Anganwadi centres as centres for the holistic development of Children to ensure “equality of opportunity to all Children” through effective implementation of the idea of “Poshan Bhi, Padhai Bhi”

The initiative incorporates the following:

✼ Building structures that should be based on the age and size of children and child-friendly AWCs;

✼ Strategies for creating community involvement and buy-in for Early Child Stimulation and ECCE;

✼ Availability of an appropriately developed curriculum for the foundational stage;

✼ Training and certification for AWTs and AWHs to conduct ECE curriculum during their job training;

✼ The reduced workload of ICDS by creating better reporting structures and systems to avoid duplication, so that AWTs /AWHs can focus more on ECCE activities;

✼ Support from the ULBs and GPs to maintain hygienic conditions in and around AWCs to maintain the good health of children and teachers;

✼ Allocation of fixed and regular funds to AWCs to make them child-friendly and transform them into learning centres with handbooks for AW teachers and purchase of PLMs.

The programme in Koppal district covers 5 ICDS projects from 7 talukas having 1,960 AWCs and has impacted 1,35,000 children, 27,500 parents, 1,960 AWTs, 1,936 AWHs, 24 Mini AWCs, 72 supervisors, 5 CDPOs and more than 20 lakh people. Following the intervention, AWCs saw various improvements. With the play and learning materials, AWTs and AWHs were able to deliver better ECE to children. Meanwhile, supervisors were able to effectively monitor the progress of AWTs and AWHs and provide the necessary feedback to them.

✼ The staff began to take greater ownership and responsibility and started mobilising resources, developing teaching-learning materials, and creating engaging playful environments, all on their own. By improving the delivery of ECE services and roping in the community as a stakeholder, the innovation has significantly magnified the ICDS’s reach and impact across the region.

✶ Why and how of ECCE includes the need, principles of early learning, appropriate learning environment, structure of ECE programme, pedagogy, and balanced activity plan. Skills in conducting developmentally appropriate ECE activities — free play, physical, social & emotional, cognitive, creative, emergent literacy, and early numeracy — have been developed. Exposure to model AWCs for observation and experiential learning has also been ensured.

✶ Out of 1960 AWTs, supervisors trained 1,821 Anganwadi Workers and 1,666 AWH in Early Childhood Education for 18 days of training that were conducted in a phased manner covering the following aspects.

A total of seven training and activity manuals along with six compendiums are being developed as part of the standard curriculum for attaining competency as per NEP.

Community-based interventions:

✯ “Poshakar Nade Anganwadi Kade” (Ek Kadam Anganwadi ki or) has been introduced to involve parents in AWC activities. The parents were oriented about Early Child Stimulation and ECE programmes through the display and demonstration of activities, materials prepared by the teacher and other play materials at AWC.

✯ To sustain the continuous interaction with the parents, WhatsApp groups were created for parents of children in 1,960 Anganwadi centres at the Koppal district, including 27,230 parents in WhatsApp groups. AWT shares the activities conducted in their centres regularly in the groups to which parents respond by actively interacting in the group and are also able to conduct those activities at home with their children.

✯ Hello Poshakare: Hello Poshakare is a programme for continuous communication and orientation of the Community about Poshan and ECCE through SMS being done with support from UNICEF.

✯ 25 primary school teachers visit Anganwadi centres and observe the PSE activities and parent meetings.

✯ During 2024-25, the graduation day “Anganwadi Makala Shala Praveshotsava” programme was conducted for 18,999 Anganwadi children.

✯ The “Balamela” programme for Anganwadi children was also conducted at the GP Level

From curriculum development to the district-level ECCE committee, this is the only initiative that has created convergence between Education and WCD and helped in the orientation of PSTs about the ECCE programme in AWC through visits and active engagement in the learning activities.

Nalini Atul and his committed team have made it happen in a remote district of the country. The model has enormous potential for other districts in the country. Hopefully, it will happen there as well.

Views expressed are personal