TIME FOR CRITICAL SELF-EVALUATION TO ATTAIN BETTER OUTCOMES: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF AWWS ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROVIDED IN AWCS IN KERALA IN LIGHT OF NEP 2020

The first six years of a child’s life are vital because this is when the groundwork is established for their cognitive, social, emotional, physical, motor, and psychological development. India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) represents one of the most extensive child development programmes in the world. The government of India introduced the ICDS in 1975 under the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) to provide holistic development to the child through Anganwadi centers (AWCs) managed by an Anganwadi worker (AWW) and helper (AWH). ICDS offers supplementary nutrition, immunization, health check-ups, referral services, nutrition & health check-ups, and preschool education. NEP (2020) mandates that quality early childhood development, care, and education should be universally available by 2030 to ensure all children are prepared for Grade One. In Kerala, AWWs are so overburdened that the education component does not receive ample attention, or they do not get enough time for the same. In Kerala, the early childhood education component is good, but AWWs have no time to implement the same as prescribed in the curriculum due to other duties and other reasons. To understand the early childhood education in AWCs in Kerala from the perspective of AWWs and its poorly executed implementation, the present study was initiated to study the need for better change in early childhood education through AWCs in Kerala by considering NEP 2020.