i-SEEC-Anganwadi
Integrated Smart Early Education & Care
Early years matter
Our concept supports the vision of National Education Policy that aims for equal and quality education for all.
“Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is more than preparation for primary school. It aims at the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs in order to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing”
Pre-primary education gives children a solid foundation upon which all learning depends on, making every stage of education that follows more efficient and more productive. Research shows that good quality learning, early childhood education and early childhood development (ECD) programmes help to reduce the chances of dropout and repetition.
In July 2020, the Ministry of Education released the new National Education Policy, where schooling begins with the inclusion of ECCE (Early Child Care and Education) from age 3. The policy states “Universal provisioning of quality early childhood development, care, and education must thus be achieved as soon as possible, and no later than 2030, to ensure that all students entering Grade 1 are school ready.
Challenges:
- There are still substantial numbers of children who are not enrolled in Anganwadis in rural India.
- Another biggest challenge is the huge dropout ratio for later years of education.
- Despite the recognition of the importance of ECCE by the Government of India, actual implementation at ground level is not up to the mark due to demographic conditions and lack of resources.
- One of the challenges is standardisation of preschool education models pan India.
- Lack of trained and self-motivated staff at Anganwadi centres.
- Need for evaluation and monitoring of centres for sustainable impact on society.
We have supported the vision of National Education Policy(NEP) in line with Sustainable Development goals(SDGs) and ECCE to create sustainable models that empower young minds, parents and thereby promote inclusive and equitable learning opportunities for all
An integrated system that is based on the concept of ‘learning through play’ in an inviting and child-friendly environment. Apart from various learning methods and tactics, children are exposed to role-play activities like ‘Swachh Bharat, traffic signal education, safety awareness and many more interesting things to learn. It has created a visible impact on the children by encouraging their desire to learn, improving their communication skills, vocabulary, concentration, and supporting the development of logical skills.
- 1st SMART ANGANWADI in Gujarat – Pilot project at Ichhapore in Surat district in Gujarat. Following the success of the first project, we have executed more than 250 centres in various districts of India.
- In the state of Maharashtra, we created the first SMART Anganwadi in 25 centres in the Mumbai suburb as our pilot project. This project has been selected as one of the top 10 innovative projects of the ICDS Department by Maharashtra State Government.
Impact:
In the 2+ years of the implementation of the i-SEEC Model, the student enrolment has increased drastically. From a strength of 17-20 students, the Anganwadi now has 30-35 students and for the first time, the Anganwadi has a waiting list of parents wanting to enrol their children to the Anganwadi. The Anganwadi workers also encourage parents’ involvement through community engagement activities at the centre. The modules designed on topics such as games on solar & lunar eclipse, activity-based games for personal hygiene and nutrition, role play for fire safety and learning corners such as bead counting, alphabet train and many more concept-based activities made learning fun and children came to centres without the Anganwadi workers having to pursue them to attend school. The model has proven to be an all-round success by not only increasing student retention and teacher empowerment ratio but also by increasing student participation in activities that foster overall development of a child.
Having monitored the model for 2+ Years and understanding the success & contribution of this model to child development, the AMC is now ready to take these models to the Anganwadi Centres across the city and strengthen the public pre-schools to reach more children in the city. This promising model is a pathway to bringing Anganwadi centres at par with the private pre-schools in the country and the overall development of the child.
