Early Childhood Care in India

UNESCO defines 'early childhood' as the first eight years of a child's life. This period is characterized by tremendous brain development. Research has shown that early childhood care and education are very important in laying a foundation for future learning and growth. The following graph shows the growth gap of children who do not receive early childhood education. (source: Hult Challenge of 2015)

Professor David Johnson in his talk at Oxford University on November 6th, 2014 provided concrete examples of studies that exemplified the benefits of Early Childhood Education (ECE):
1) Improved health of children who received ECE in Brazil
2) Increased intelligence of children in Jamaica, Columbia, Peru and Turkey who received ECE
3) Higher enrollment in school of kids who received ECE in Columbia
4) Less grade repetition of kids who received ECE in Brazil and Argentina

Organizations such as the World Bank, UNICEF and UNESCO are heavily invested in developing Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)/Early Childhood Education (ECE)/ Early Childhood Development (ECD) schemes around the globe.

What is the current state of children below the age of 6 in India?

63 infants of every 1000 born alive die before the age of one in India (ref: UNICEF). The under-five mortality rate in India is 93. This high rate of infant mortality is closely related to the high rate of maternal deaths: 540 deaths per 100,000 live births. This is because few women have access to skilled birth attendants, and to quality and emergency obstetric care. Skilled attendants handle fewer than half of all deliveries.

Childhood illnesses pose a serious threat to infants that do survive these odds. One in three children do not get a full course of DPT(diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus immunization). More than two million children are known to die every year from preventable infections (including measles and tetanus).

Compounding this, is the problem of malnutrition, which severely impedes growth. One in every three of the world's malnourished children live in India. 50% of all childhood deaths in India are attributed to malnutrition. Although the major reason for malnutrition is inadequate food intake, the availability and access to health services, the access to healthcare for children and pregnant women, the quality of that care (are hygienic practices being followed) are important factors as well (ref: UNICEF).

Due to their lower social status, girls are at a much higher risk of malnutrition than boys of the same age. Up to one third of all adult women in India are underweight, partly because of this cultural bias. Inadequate care of these women, especially during pregnancy leads them in turn to deliver underweight babies who are vulnerable to further malnutrition and disease, causing a vicious cycle to develop.

The following image has been taken from the Slum Census of India, 2011. All the problems described above are acutely present in urban slums. The table shows the abysmal sex ratios that exist (~920 females/1000 males). This is highly problematic.

What has the government done?

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) in India is the world's largest integrated early childhood programs, with over 40,000 centers around the country. Started in 1975, with financial and technical assistance from UNICEF and the World Bank, the program has the dual aim to improve the health and nutritional status of children between 0 and 6 years of age, laying the foundation for their future development; as well as to help mothers look after the nutritional and health needs of their children.

The Integrated Child Development Services has developed a package of services to achieve its ambitious goal, as the outcome of one service depends on the outcomes of the others. The services offered are health, nutrition and hygiene education to mothers, non-formal preschool education to children aged three to six, supplementary feeding for all children, pregnant and nursing mother, growth monitoring and promotion, and links to primary health care services such as immunization and vitamin A supplements. This comprehensive scheme replaced the Balwadi Nutrition scheme that had been started by the government in the 'to provide food supplements to children of the age group 3 to 6 years in rural areas.

The platform of delivery of all the services of ICSD are the 'Anganwadi Centers (AWC)' (loosely translates to village courtyard). Each center is run by an anganwadi worker and one helper, who undergo three months of institutional training and, four months of community based training.

AWCs have been set up in every village in India (~1.4 million in total). Today the program covers 4.8 million expectant and nursing mother and over 23 million children under the age of six. Of these children, more than half participate in early learning activities. A number of evaluation studies of ICDS have been conducted. Broadly, community leaders were positive about the functioning of the AWCS (>80% in all states) while >70% found the program to be beneficial to the community.

What are the challenges of the scheme?

Although the ICDS policy is excellent on paper, it suffers from several implementation challenges. Professor David Johnson in his talk at Oxford, said that one of the biggest issues is maintaining a minimum quality standard in the centers. Centers are dark, housing too many children. The National Council of Applied Economic Research 2005 survey data reveals that >45% anganwadis have no toilet facilities. An appraisal conducted by the NIPCCD in 2006 revealed that 59% of the AWCs studied had no toilet facility. The appraisals also noticed breaching of procedure at the centers. For example, 36.5% of the mothers at the centers did not report weighing of new born children.

One factor that could be responsible for this, is the inadequate training of the anganwadi workers(AWWs) and their helpers. Although 84% of the AWWs are reported to have received pre-service training, in-service training has largely been neglected. One in every two AWWs in the country have been educated at least up to the matriculate level in the country. Due to this limitation, AWWs may not appreciate the importance of continuously engaging with the children and facilitating their development. Compound this, with the fact that workers are paid a pitifully low wage (Recently the government increased their wages by an honorarium of Rs 500 over their previous wage of Rs 938- Rs 1068/month) and have very little incentive to do their job well.

In addition due to the inefficient streaming of funds from various State governments, many AWCs reported forced disruption to the services due to the lack of availability of supplementary nutrition and teaching pack materials. The AWCs employ play based learning techniques. Each AWC is supposed to be provided with a kit costing Rs 1000 that contains items such as building blocks, balls etc that are supposed to facilitate this kind of learning. The government has recently tried to redistribute funding, with more onus now being on national cash flows, rather than state cashflows in order to ensure a reliable supply of such material.

Finally, on an average 66% of eligible childre and 75% of eligible women were registered at the AWCs. The participation of beneficiary women and girls has been low. This inequality needs to be addressed in order to achieve true development in this sphere

Who am I? - Just a bunch of statistics

In April 2008, my family sat in front of our old family desktop computer. My mother feverishly clicked on the 'refresh button', waiting for my scores to appear. My father and sister stood behind her clutching themselves in agony. I decided that I couldn't bear to watch, went into the next room and flung myself on my bed.

And then I heard my mother scream. My family rushed into my room and hugged me fiercely. I had cleared the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and had qualified for a place to do my undergraduate in engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

From that day forward; family, teachers, friends, Quora, and everyone else who knew about the JEE, never let me forget that I belonged to the privileged One Percent.

What is the One Percent, you ask?

JEE is the admission test for the 15 IITs, ITBHU and ISM Dhanbad. The total number of seats available in all these institutions is about 10,000. Many of the IITs are new, and have come into operation recently. 5 IITs- Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Madras are well established and have about 5000 seats in all.

Approximately 24,000 candidates of the ~500,000 who write the JEE every year, meet the subject cut offs required to clear the exam. Of these 24,000, the 5000 top ranked candidates get admission in one of the old, well established IITs (~1%). The other qualified candidates who do not get a seat in one of the 17 institutions mentioned above, can get seats at other institutions which also use the JEE rank as their criterion for admission. None of these institutions are as well known as the IITs however, and are usually a candidate's second choice.

I will gloss over the problem of the scarcity of good institutions in India, which make getting admission into one of the IITs (which provide a great education at an affordable cost) so coveted; and go straight to question that I want to discuss in this article:

Was the probability of me being in the top 5000 really 1%?

This report, produced by IIT Kanpur says not. The report is an analysis of the 2012 JEE. It provides details of the background of candidates who sat for the exam, and of those who cleared the exam. The results are striking!

The assumption I will make here is that the 2012 statistics reported is representative of the general JEE result.

The following pie chart shows the percentage of General Category (GE), Scheduled Castes(SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) that registered for the exam, and the percentage that qualified in the common merit list; and with the different criterion. SCs and STs are historically disadvantaged people that are recognized by the Constitution of India. They form 16.6% and 8.6% of India's total population. OBC is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are educationally and socially disadvantaged. They form 52% of India's population according to the Mandal Commission of 1980. This number is under dispute. Seats are reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs in order to level the playing field, and make up for the injustices they have suffered in the past.

The qualifying criteria for GE candidates are at least 10% in each subject (Physics, Chemistry and Math), and a 35% in total. The qualifying criteria for OBC candidates was at least 9% in each subject and 31.5% in total. The qualifying criteria for SC/ST candidates is at least 5% in each subject and 17.5% in total.

The image clearly shows that the percentage of GE candidates giving JEE is greater than their actual demographic percentage. In addition they do much better in the exam than other candidates. The probability of a registered GE candidate appearing in the Common Merit List (CML) is 5.2% as compared to the 2.5% for OBC candidates, 0.7% for SC candidates and 0.5% candidates for STs.

The report also examined the gender demographic of the candidates who wrote the exam, and those who cleared it. The following image shows the number of male and female candidates in different categories that registered for the exam. It can be seen that percentage of OBC candidates of both genders that qualify for the exam is disproportionately smaller than the candidates that registered for the exam.

The number of female candidates that register for the exam is half that of the number of male candidates. The number of female candidates that qualify are even fewer. Defects in the primary and secondary education system for girls due to societal reasons could possibly account for these highly skewed ratios.

The report also looked at the educational qualifications of the parents of the students who wrote the exam. The following pie chart shows the percentage of registered and qualified male and female candidates whose parents belong to one of the listed professions.

It can be seen that this is also an important factor in determining the success of a candidate. This may be because of several reasons such as: Perhaps the average salary of people engaged in agriculture is less than that of people who work in law. This means that lawyers could afford to send their children to better schools and this could give them an edge over other children. In addition, studies have shown that highly educated parents set high expectations of their children. This could be another factor contributing to the success of their children.

The report also examines the parent's income of candidates that registered for the exam, and that of those that qualified.

The inverse relationship between parents income and a candidates success rate is clearly seen.

Another important factor the report considered was the type of primary schooling of candidates. The primary education system consists of several different boards with different syllabi and different exams. The following pie chart shows the number of candidates belonging to each board that registered and qualified for the exam.

A shocking result is that the number of students from State Boards that qualify is half that of students from the CBSE board in spite of more children from State boards registering for JEE. This indicates a real problem in the primary education system in India.

The final factor considered in the report is that of place of residence. The pie charts below capture the percentage of candidates from different places who registered for, and qualified for JEE.

It can be seen that candidates who live in cities, perform much better than candidates from other areas. A possible reason for this could be that schools in cities are better than schools in other areas.

As a girl, educated in an ICSE school in Bombay, whose parents are doctors and earn > 4.5 lakhs a year, I belong to a privileged section of society. The probability of someone like me getting into IIT is much higher than say, a girl living in a village, going to a state school whose father is a farmer. What is this probability? If I knew the number of girls from cities whose parents earned >4.5 lakhs a year, and who studied in an ICSE school, I could use Bayes Conditional Probability Theorem to come up with the actual probability of someone like me qualifying for the JEE. However, I need more rigorous breakdown of the actual numbers to make this calculation. In my opinion, the pie charts in this post already provide compelling evidence that this probability is more than 1%. This privilege needs to be recognized and spoken about. The education sector of India has to be evened out so that all children, regardless of their background have an equal shot at clearing JEE.