Abstract:
The education given in the early stages of child development is called Early Childhood Education (ECE). This education is provided to children before formal primary education, hence it is also called pre-primary education.
Children are the future of the nation. With a view to progress and strengthen the nation in their development, efforts were made to provide equal opportunities for development and education to all the children in independent India. For which provision of compulsory and free education was made for all children.
In order to implement children's development programs and schemes, the Central Social Welfare Department was first established in 1953. Under its plan, voluntary institutions came forward in the field of elementary education in urban areas and "Mahila Mandal" and Kindergarten program started in rural areas. After this, National Policy for children was adopted in 1974. As a result, Integrated Child Development Service Scheme was established in 1975. Under this scheme, programs for the development and education of children were determined and early childhood education was developed.
This was also accepted in the National Education Policy (1986). In this policy, early childhood education was considered as an investment for human resource development and started as a nourishing and supportive program of primary education. The Early Childhood Education Program started as an early childhood care and education programme. The Education Policy 1986 laid emphasis on this program as an important investment for universalisation of elementary education and its development. For this, it was suggested to make a complete system in which the overall development of the child was made the objective. This program was proposed as a holistic approach with the aim of promoting health and nutritional, physical, mental, social, emotional and moral development of the child.
The National Hisa Beethi also emphasized that at this stage, children should be kept away from writing, reading and numbering (3R) and formal education system. The early childhood education program should be based on the play system and the individual characteristics of the child.
