HYDERABAD: With constant mushrooming of private English schools in the State and elsewhere, and parents declining interest in government schools, many indigent families are forced to send their children to private schools, right from the start.
In order to make anganwadis in the State more inviting and inspiring place, the Department of Women Development and Child Welfare (WCD) have developed a new curriculum for both the LKG and UKG classes. The new curriculum will have additional component of English, with enhanced complexity.
The children studying in anganwadis of Telangana will now have more colourful and interactive books. Each of the students in the 35,700 anganwadis of the State will now get their activity books, unlike before, when multiple kids were given a single book and school kits worth Rs 3,500.
The whole move will be in tune with the WCD Ministry and NCERT’s National Early Childhood Care and Education Framework (ECCE) of 2014-15, which is promoting the use of multilingualism, enhanced training of anganwadi teachers and several other components, in order to improve anganwadis quality of education. The move is in the wake of a high dropout rate in anganwadis, where many dropouts school before a student reaches the 3rd standard.
The students of age group 4-5 years will now have four books and students of age group 5-6 years will have five books with components of language, art and craft, numerals and environment studies. Both LKG and UKG classes will have one dedicated English activity book. The new added English book will go beyond mere alphabet writing to reading out of words and sentences where the alphabet will be appropriate, making the number of the page from 50 to 100 in English.
Officials claim that the decision was taken up as more and more parents are opting for private education and English oriented education. This is economic pressure on families with lower income, as private schools charge a lot in terms of fees. Many have to lead money to send their children to private schools.
Further, the WCD is now planning to tweak the curriculum based on a survey. “We conducted a random survey in one of our most challenging terrains of Achampet in Nagarkurnool where there is a high number of tribal first generation learners. An analysis of the report cards from 2018 measure the performance of children across various growth indices every four months, added a senior official.
Meanwhile, these efforts were highly needed, as a study conducted by Save the Children on anganwadis in TS in 2018 had shown that the government spends roughly `6,300 on each child of which only a small component goes on academic expenditure in terms of books and kits while majority of it goes for salaries and mid-day meals. This is contrary to private schools where `9000 is spent on each child.
Students to get interactive books
The children studying in TS Anganwadis will now have more colourful and interactive books. Each student of the 35,700 Anganwadis of the State will now get their own activity books, unlike before, when multiple kids had to share one book