Resources 5.11.0 The' policy document is silent on both the magnitude of resources required and the manner in which these should be raised. The POA, therefore, does no more than depend on the Government resources available through the expansion of programmes in each Plan. .:A different and shared approach to funding of ECCE programme emerges from the, perspective of decentralised management and community control as presented in the previous section. As stated earlier, about 14 crore children are below the age of six years and about 5.6 crores out of these
127
constitute the most vulnerable segment, requiring urgent attention. The Ministry's Working Group for the Eighth Plan has suggested that 80% of the vulnerable target population be covered by the end of the Plan period. As shown in Table 1 this would work-out to about 4.5 crore children in 1990 or 4.9 crore children by 1995. Even if this scaled down target is accepted, we would still need to achieve an annual minimum expenditure of about Rs.4,900 crores (at 1989 prices)* for ECCE services by 1995, to be reached in a phased manner. Given the present set of socio-political constraints, the Government cannot conceivably be depended upon for making such vast resources available, though it would have to carry the primary responsibiity for universalisation of ECCE under Article 45 of the Constitution.
Recommendations i) A Central Fund for child care services should be set-up at the national level.
ii) The Government should provide a substantially higher allocation for ECCE, spelling it out as a percentage of GNP, keeping in view the estimated requirements of Rs.4900 crores per annum even for achieving the POA targets to be reached by the end of Eighth Plan in a phased manner.
iii) A 10-year action and resource allocation plan for building up a national network of child care services be prepared, such that at least 70% of the children below six would be covered by an essential package of services by 2000 AD, as suggested in POA.
iv) Funds for the national network may be drawn from five sources as given below: a) Government; As per Article 45 of the Constitution, the Central and State Governments would have to bear the major responsibility for funding the programme. These funds may be drawn by pooling together the provisions made in the respective budgets of the Departments of Education, Women & Child Development, Health and Labour for this purpose. To facilitate this, an Inter- ministerial Committee may be constituted. The Government Departments which employ labour (e.g. Irrigation, Rural Development, Forest, Works & Housing etc.) should henceforth be required to make a proportionate provision for expenses on child care services and contribute this money to the Central Fund.
128
b) Employers: A special welfare cess for the Central Fund should be levied on all employers, whether in the private or in the public sector, regardless of the sex of the workers employed. No distinction need be made on the basis of the type of employment-salaried, daily wage or some other form.
c) Local Bodies: Panchayats, Municipalities and Corporations may be encouraged to raise additional funds for ECCE through special local cess/taxes.
d) Parents: With community control, it should become possible for the Village/Mohalla Committee to raise a certain fraction of the needed resources from the parents at the local level, as a voluntary contribution on a monthly basis. In the organised sector, this contribution could be collected through the trade unions.
e) Donations: Tax incentives may be given on contributions to the Central Fund. v) A special allocation of additional funds, say Rs.100 crores, be made for 1991-92 to undertake preparatory work consisting of an awareness-raising media campaign, upgradation of the existing ICDS and other centres, developing decentralised structures at the grass roots, building up training programmes and promoting action research in aternative models.
Monitoring and Evaluation 5.12.0 Unlike what is suggested in Para 13 of POA, the entire system of monitoring and evaluation has to be re-structured on the principles of participation, reflection and decentralised management.
Recommendations i) DIETs and Educational Complexes, rather than any higher level structures, should have a major role in both planning and execution of the system of internal monitoring and evaluation.
ii) The State Government should also organise an independent system of monitoring and evaluation of the programme at the level of Educational Complexes only (i.e., not at the level of individual centres) and make its reports available for open and public consideration at the District or Block level. 129
iii) one major objective of these exercises should be to use the findings as a direct input for renewal/strengthening of the programme at the local level. For this, it would be necessary to foster lateral inter-action and exchange of findings (complex to complex or centre to centre or centre-complex), rather than the exclusive vertical and upwards flow indicated in the POA. The reports from monitoring and evaluation exercises should also be released for open interaction at both the formal and informal for a with a view to build up public pressure for programme efficiency.
iv) The Index of Human Development should be a dynamic concept and be made public as a means of monitoring as well as community intervention in the programmes.
130
TABLE 1
Schematic Coverage Under Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
1. Total Population (projected to
March, 1990)* 82.2 crores
2. Percentage of population in 0-6 age-group 17%
3. Estimated No. of children in 0-6 age-
group 14.0 crores
4. Estimated No. of specially vulnerable
children in 0-6 age group (based upon 40%
of population being below poverty
line) 5.6 crores
5. Total No. of beneficiary children
in the 0-6 age group covered by
various ECCE programmes (1989-90)** 1.43 crores
6. Total coverage under ECCE in 0-6
age group (1989-90) 10.2%
7. Coverage under ECCE of vulnerable
segment in 0-6 age group (1989-90) 25.5%
8. Eighth Plan target of covering 80%
of vulnerable children in 0-6 age
group by 1995 (Total population in
1995 - 89.8 crores)* 4.9 crores
9. POA's target of covering 70% of all
children in 0-6 age group by 2000
(Total population in 2000 - 97.2
crores)* 11.6 crores
* Taken from the Report of Expert Committee on Population Projections, Office of the Registrar General, Govt. of India
Source: Department of Education and Department of Women and Child Development, Ministry of HRD (see Table 2 for details).
131
TABLE 2
Coverage Under Various Early Childhood Education Schemes
(1989-90)
Total population in the age group 3-6 years in March 1990 (estimated
on the basis of 7% of total population) - 575.4 lakhs
Programmes Number of Beneficiaries Percentage of
centres coverage population in
(in lakhs) age-group 3-6
1) ICDS (Pre-school
education age-group
3-6) (2424 Sanctioned
Projects)* 2,03,386 65.78** 11.43
2) Early Childhood
Education (ECE)
4,365 1.53 0.27
3) Creches and Day Care
Centres - age group
0-5(estimated coverage
on the basis of 25
children per creche)
12,230 3.06 0.53
4) Balwadis - age-group
3-6(estimated coverage
on the basis of 30 children
per Balwadi)
5,641 1.69 0.29
5) Pre-primary
Schools+ 14,765 14.40 2.50
TOTAL - 86.46 15.02
* Including 188 State Government Projects running on ICDS pattern. Out of the Sanctioned Projects, only 1,840 were reporting to the Ministry in September, 1990
** An additional 56.06 lakh children in the 0-3 age- group are covered under ICDS.
+ Selected Educational Statistics, 1988-89, Ministry of HRD (Dept. of Education), Govt. of India.
Note:Data on ICDS, ECE, Creches and Day Care Centres, and Balwadis were supplied by the Department of Women and Child Development in the Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India. The ICDS data are updated until September 1990.
132
TABLE 3
Current Status of Training for ECCE
Sl. Name & Nature of Minimum Duration
No. Course Qualifications
for Entry
1. Anganwadi workers' Varies from State 3 Months
training (job training, to State
para-professional) Class V-VIII the
norm
2. Nursery Teachers' Class X One year
Training/Pre-primary
Teachers' Training
3. Vocational Training Class X Two years
in Child Care (+2) of
CBSE
4. Balsevika Training of Class X 11 months
Indian Council for
Child Welfare
5. Montessori Training of Class X One year
Association of Montessori
International
6. Integrated Pre-primary Class XII Two years
and Primary Teachers'.
Training (Delhi)
7. Diploma in Early Child- Graduate One year/
hood Education distance
education
8. Middle Level Supervisors Varies - 3 months
Training (job training) graduate,
post-graduate
and promoted
Source: Department of Pre-school and Elementary Education, NCERT, 1990
133