With No Focus on Early Education, Are Anganwadis in Telangana Mere Daycare Centres?
Pre-primary school education is considered crucial in keeping children in school as 60% of the drop-outs happen before the child reaches Class 3. A new study by Bal Raksha Bharat has found that Telangana spends Rs 6,336 on each child who goes to the anganwadi centres every year, however, no small component of this is spent on early child education. This is unlike the private pre-schools where a larger sum amounting to anywhere between 9,000-29,000 is spent to educate the children.
The study titled ‘The right start – Investing in early years of education – TELANGANA’ also goes onto highlight how Telangana’s expenditure if divided across various components, focuses on the ‘salaries of anganwadi teacher’ (49 ) and providing ‘Nutrition’ (44). No component of the money spent is given to learning materials and curriculum development, nor to training the teachers. The study also suggests policy intervention in terms of getting the State to allocate a separate fund for pre-school education.
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