Resource Package For A Wareness In Early Childhood Care And Education (ECCE)

PREFACE

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) has been universally acknowledged as a significant input for the development of young children. The National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy by the Ministry of Woman and Child Development in the year 2013 highlights early years as critical stage for life-long learning and development. However, lack of understanding of appropriate ECCE among the parents and other stakeholders is a major deterrent in ensuring appropriate ECCE in early years. Provision of ECCE for all children until they complete the age of six years, may remain a distant dream if educational planners, educational administrators, teachers, parents and community do not get involved in its process. Even these stakeholders are not properly aware of the significance of early years and provisions to ensure quality ECCE. Therefore, awareness in ECCE appears to be a weak link and an area to be addressed on priority basis if our dreams have to be realised. Realising this concern, the ECCE policy recommended to address this issue by the extensive usage of folk, print and electronic media, to reach out to ECCE

functionaries, parents and the larger community. In this light, a need was felt to organise awareness generation programmes at different levels for different stakeholders. Keeping this concern into consideration, the Department of Elementary Education (DEE) has developed a ‘Resource Package for Awareness in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)’ as support material for organising such programmes. The package is a combination of folk, print and electronic media such as documentary film, audio spots, posters, banners, leaflets, puppets, scripts for puppetry and scripts for drama, etc., keeping into consideration the requirement of the community and ECCE functionaries. This resource package is developed in two different languages Hindi and English. The resource package intends to create sensitivity and awareness in appropriate ECCE practices by addressing various issues arid concerns. Therefore, it is expected that it will prove to be an exemplar for ECCE educators to spread the awareness about ECCE in the right

spirit.

The package has been tried out in different communities of Uttarakhand and New Delhi during the year 2014-15. More than 500 community members and 60 ECCE functionaries from various institutions like State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), District Institute of Education and Training (DIETs), and anganwadi centres of 17 States/ Union Territories (UTs) participated in the programme. Based on the feedback received, the resource package has been modified in terms of content and presentation.