EducationWorld’s prolonged and sustained advocacy for provision of universal Early Childhood Care and Education has paid off. The government has finally announced to roll out Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in all Anganwadi centres (AWCs) in the 2022-23 financial year.
Two lakh AWCs, at the rate of 40,000 per year, shall be given to boost, upgrade and rejuvenate across the country for improving nutrition delivery under ‘Saksham Anganwadi’ programme. The centres will be equipped with internet connectivity, smart learning aids, audio visual aids, child-friendly learning equipment and artwork. It has also been decided to install rain water harvesting structures in two lakh AWCs.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development has recently shared these guidelines and also notified a roadmap for the same. These have been released as the new guidelines regarding the implementation of Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 that form part of the integrated nutrition support programme.
The initiative further seeks to address the main problems of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery and by the creation of a convergent ecosystem to expand and promote practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity.
The objectives of Poshan 2.0 include addressing challenges of malnutrition, promote nutrition awareness and good eating habits for a proper health and better living and address nutrition-related shortcomings.
Besides the outreach on nutrition, the guidelines call upon states to make concerned efforts to enroll children aged 3-6 years at AWCs for the benefit of the ECCE programme. Training for ECEE will be held in collaboration with the department of school education and literacy.
The ECCE programme will cover provision for pre-school learning material for cognitive, emotional, social and intellectual development of the child; development of muscular coordination and basic motor skills; training and skilling needed to make all pre-schoolers school ready and for seamless integration of children in the age group of 5-6 years.
The guidelines also mention that states must consider running mobile AWCs for people in urban slum areas owing to the non-availability of permanent buildings. States/UTs have also been asked to co-locate the anganwadis which are either on rent or running without a good infrastructure or are far away from nearby government primary schools.
Source: The TOI