Trainer’s Handbook In Early Childhood Care And Education

PREFACE

The early years of children constitute the most significant period in life because this is when the foundations are laid for motor, sensory, cognitive language, social and personality development. Pre-school learning and Early Childhood Care are considered to be crucial inputs in improving the enrolment and participation of children in formal schooling. This is a time of opportunity where even small positive inputs may generate long-term social benefits.

The need for a meaningful Early Childhood Education (ECE) programme has been emphasised in NPE, 1986 and POA 1992. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan also acknowledges the importance of ECCE in achieving the universalisation of elementary education. This has led to large-scale expansion of Early Childhood Education Programmes, both in the Government and Non-Governmental sectors. This expansion has created the need for trained personnel in large numbers, which, in turn, has necessitated the organisation of short-term in-service training programmes in Early Childhood Education.

These training programmes are generally envisaged to be multi-level in nature. The training of key resource persons is undertaken at the central level and gradual decentralisation is planned at subsequent levels. In this cascade mode of training, it is generally observed that for every additional level, there is scope for inevitable dilution of the content and quality of training. To counter this, it would be necessary to provide the resource persons at every level with ready reference material for their guidance. The present Handbook has been prepared keeping this specific need in mind. It is based on the training pattern and strategy that evolved in this department which is in practice over the last few years. It would be useful for training of ECE personnel at all levels.