RESEARCH IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION A TREND REPORT : AMITA VERMA, PRERANA MOHITE
INTRODUCTION In our country organized education of the child below primary school age did not, untill very recently, receive the attention it deserved.
The concept of infant schools was introduced in India by the British missionaries in the latter part of the 18th century when such schools were set up in the western and southern regions of India. Some institutions for training teachers for infant schools were also started by these missionaries.
Mahatma Gandhi's scheme for pre-basic education formulated in the late thirties Was the first indigenous scheme for education of very young children and several educational reformers and social workers endeavoured to put it into action at the field level. Jugatrambhai Dave, Nanabhai Bhatt and Tarabai Modak were some of the early pioneers of the early childhood education movement in our country. They were all inspired by the down-to-earth, grassroots level approach of Mahatma Gandhi's pre-basic-education scheme.
The most dominant influence that can be felt even today, as one surveys the contemporary Indian education scene, particularly with reference to early childhood education, is that of Madam Maria Montessori who came to India in 1939 as a refugee from the Fascist regime in Italy. Annie Besant, a Theosophist, was powerfully influenced by Madam Montessori and she and Rukmini Arundale helped Madam Montessori set up a teacher training centre at Adyar, near Madras. Many early childhood educators received their training under Madam Montessori at Adyar and then went out to various parts of the country and spread the movement for early childhood education. Gijubhai Badheka and Tarabai Modak were among the early educators who, inspired by Madam Montessori, adapted her methods to suit? Indian conditions. They set up the Nutan Bal Shikshan Sangh in 1925. A training centre at Bhavnagar Dakshinamoorti was started by Gijubhai and, later, one was set up by Tarabai at Dadar, Bombay. The movement took strong roots in the Saurashtra region of the then Province, and also in Madhya Bharat and the Vidarbha region. The early pioneers attempted to develop an indigenous educational system, imbibing the basic Gandhian philosophy and integrating it with the educational principles and scientific pedagogy of Madam Montessori.
During the pre-independence period all these efforts were confined to the voluntary sector and received no support from the government. It was for the first time that, in 1944, a government document, popularly known as the Sargent Committee Report, emphasized the importance of pre-primary education and linked it with the child's educational performance in primary school. The report viewed pre- primary education as a necessary adjunct to primary education.
During the post-independence period, the movement for the education of young children drew great support from the private and voluntary sectors. Apart from its educational values, the 'welfare' dimension also gained recognition. The country's Five Year Na-
1218 AMITA VERMA, PRERANA MOHITE
tional Plans, while paying lip service to the need and importance of early childhood education suggested no definite plan or policy in this behalf nor did it make substantial allocations for promoting this field. Many committees and commissions were appointed, both in the education and social welfare sectors, but no systematic efforts were made for the implementation of the recommendations of these committees.
It was in the Fifth Five Year Plan that the provision of an integrated package of essential services to young children and pregnant and lacting mothers was conceived and the integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) was launched in 1975 with 66 pilot projects. The ICDS is broadly conceived as an integrated intervention strategy for the holistic development of the young child in the wider context of the family and the larger social group in which the child lives. The integrated package of services, of which non-formal pre-school education is a component, is delivered through the anganwadi (courtyard school) by an anganwadi worker who is picked from the community and given a three-month training. ICDS is currently the biggest programme of early childhood development. It has demonstrated that even a modest investment in child development goes a long way in developing human resources.
The National Policy on Education (1986) has given a great deal of importance to early childhood care and education (ECCE). It views ECCE as an important input in the strategy of human resource development, as a feeder and support programme for primary education and as a support service for working women of the disadvantaged section of society'. (National Policy on Education, 1986, p. 2).
In the process of planning and formulating policies related to ECCE, one major drawback that one faces is the lack of a well developed body of research in this field. It is only in the last two decades that researchers from various disciplines have become interested in studying the young child's growth, development and learning process. Unlike in the West, where the young child has attracted the attention of anthropologists, psychologists, educators, nutritionists, linguists, etc. who have studied the child from their respective perspectives, in India the young child as a subject of research has been neglected. The little research that is available today is scattered, piecemeal and in small watertight compartments.
This would become evident as one reviews the researches conducted in the field over the last 30 to 35 years.
COVERAGE, ORGANIZATION AND FRAMEWORK The main purpose of this paper is to trace the trend of research in early childhood education (ECE) by reviewing researches done in the field. This trend in research would naturally reflect the trend in the field of ECE itself. This report will therefore both review researches as well as reflect the overall trends in the practice of early childhood education as a whole. The term 'early childhood education' is comprehensive and refers to the education of children between the ages of 2 and 8 years. It focuses upon their developmental processes and educational procedures suited to them. In fact it would not be inappropriate to state that early childhood education encompasses all aspects related to or affecting a child and his/her development and education viewed in a very broad perspective. This review of early childhood education therefore includes what- happens in pre-primary schools, day care centres, intervention pro- grammes of a more broad-based nature, parent education and training of personnel.
It should be pointed out at this juncture that some of the researches included in this review may have been reported earlier either in professional journals or educational surveys. The reason for including these again in this report, even at the risk of repetition is that, for the first time, a trend report is being prepared in the area of early childhood education. The studies that have appeared elsewhere, earlier, were included under such general or broad categories as 'history of education' or 'guidance and counselling'. The present authors feel that these studies rightfully belong to the field of early childhood education and must be reported together under this umbrella. It is only through such an approach that the emerging trends in early childhood education can be delineated and understood.
Since early childhood education has a wide scope, to get some meaningful picture out of this corpus of studies it became necessary to impose some kind of organization on it without leaving out a single study in the field. It was decided to use age as the sole criterion for selection so that all researches that focused on children between the ages of 2 and 6 years were covered in this review report.
The researches on early childhood education that formed the corpus for our review included mainly doctoral researches and reports of research projects completed by various departments/institutions of education. The review therefore may be biased towards or
RESEARCH IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION-A TREND REPORT 1219
delimited to the educational aspects of early childhood, leaving out some other relevant dimensions (such as health and nutritional status of a child and its relation to his/her cognitive development).
It was also decided not to restrict the review to data based researches but to include some relevant theory-based papers. This was done mainly because, in some specific dimensions of early childhood education, there were a very limited number of studies. The reporting of theoretical papers has been done merely to enable the authors to reflect the overall trends in the field and to draw a picture of its current status.
Organization The organization of this report is as follows: It opens with an overview of the domain to be reviewed in terms of volume and number of studies; next, a classification of researches into several broad content categories is presented. Salient features of researches in terms of themes covered, methodological aspects and findings are included under each category. These are derived through critical analysis of each individual research. This is followed by concluding comments. An attempt has been made to view the directions in which the field is moving. Some recommendations for action to be taken, based on the existing lacunae, are also made.
Coverage and Classification Table 24.1 summarizes the data indicating the period and nature of the studies as well as the funding agencies, wherever these are reported. The table illustrates, at a broad level, the major content categories of early childhood education. The following major categories emerged :
1. History, need and status of pre-school education
2. Parent and community involvement
3. Personality and developmental traits of young
4. Assessment of pre-school children
5. Training of personnel for early childhood education
6. Intervention and impact studies
7. Handicapped pre-school children
The early childhood researches included were undertaken as doctoral research or were funded by government or other funding agency. There were researches on a wide variety of themes with varying methodologies and purposes, different kinds of implicit or acknowledged assumptions and social pressures.
While viewing the coverage of the studies with reference to time periods, it became clearly evident that while hardly any studies were reported in the fifties, the sixties were marked by an increase in research activities in this field. The trend continued in the seventies and eighties.
It was also observed that the range of content covered became wider. While in the sixties the categories covered through researches were limited, in the seventies more areas were explored and this trend extended into the eighties.
From this rather broad-based overview of studies in the area of early childhood education as a whole, we may turn to each content category and the types of researches covered under each of these categories.
HISTORY, NEED AND STATUS OF PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION The historical overview of early childhood education in India given above indicates a steady increase in recognition of the need and value of early childhood education among educators as well as policy makers. This was reflected in the new education policy (NPE) (1986) which focused sharply on early childhood education.
All the literature reviewed under this category cannot be termed as research, in the true sense of the term, in that much of the work is more theoretical in nature. Literature consisting of theoretical papers, papers presented at seminars and reports of government commit- tees or welfare boards are also covered.
History For an adequate understanding of current developments and the situation in any field of knowledge, knowing and understanding its history becomes an important exercise. It not only helps to view current developments in the right perspective but also aids in mean- ingful planning of future action. Unfortunately, the researchers in the field of early childhood education have failed to do this.
There are two studies that report different aspects of development at a particular period of time. Guha (1969) describes the origin of nursery schools that took
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Table 24.1
AREAWISE DISTRIBUTION OF RESEARCH STUDIES, 1956-87
History Dev. Parent and Assessment Training Intervention Handicapped Total
need, aspects and community of children of personnel and impact children
status personality development
traits
I.DECADE
1956-60 2 - - - - 1 - 3
1961-70 12 4 1 - 1 1 1 20
1971-80 13 16 2 5 1 5 1 43
1981 4 4 3 - 4 11 3 29
not dated - - - 1 1 1 - 3
31 24 6 6 7 19 5 98
II.NATURE
Ph.D. Thesis 7 16 2 1 - 3 3
Research 9 3 1 5 5 9 1
Projects
Journal 15 4 2 - 2 5 1
Articles
Paper - - 1 - - 2 -
presented
Monographs/
Comp. - 1 - - - - -
III. FUNDING
NCERT 1 - - 5 2 2 -
NIPCCD 2 - 1 - 1 5 -
IIM, Bangalore 1 - - - - - -
ISEC, Bangalore - - - - 1 - -
ICSSR 1 - - - - - 1
SITU, Council - 2 - - - - -
of Educa-
tional Research
Madras
MSBTPCR - 1 - - - - -
Princess Esin 1 - - - - - -
Women's &
Educational
Centre
TISS 1 - - - - - -
NIRD 1 - - - - 1 -
SIE,
Maharashtra 1 - - - - - -
Muni. Corpn.
Delhi - - - - 1 - -
Agakhan - - - - 1 1 -
Foundation
place in the UK in 1911 through the efforts of the MacMillan sisters. The study by Pisharody (1972) focuses on the history and interpretation of the Montessori method of education. Neither of the studies have attempted to view the historical aspects in a comprehen- sive manner. Neither is there an attempt to trace the historical development from its early beginning down to its present status. Further, the studies are non-analytical in the sense that the historical facts are merely described without interpreting them in the light of the then existing conditions. There is no reflection on the educational system, the nature of programmes for children and their
RESEARCH IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION-A TREND REPORT 1221
development during the early period. As a result, these studies have hardly any value.
Need There are several studies that emphasize the need for pre-primary education for a variety of purposes. Some major 'reasons' for pre- school education that were considered important may be listed as follows:
The early years of a child's life are formative years for his/her overall development.
Early childhood education serves to fulfill effectively all the needs of the young child-physical, social, emotional and psychological (Venkataram, 1984).
Early childhood education prepares a sound base for formal education, thus reducing stagnation and wastage in primary education. A few studies emphasize the Gandhian philosophy of education in planning early childhood education programmes (Saxena), 1971; Deenamal, 1978).
Studies during the eighties also reiterate the value and importance of early childhood education. However, these studies are a clear departure from the earlier studies that advocate early childhood education in global terms. The later studies are more specific in their reporting, emphasizing the psychological aspects of a young child's development (Mohanty, 1984; Venkatraman, 1984).
On the whole, the literature in this category is largely ideological and theoretical in nature, making a strong case for early childhood education.
Status Under this category there are 20 studies/surveys/status reports done on the status of early childhood education in various states or cities. These studies evidence a rapid growth of nursery schools in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra (Poona), Rajasthan, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Bengal. While the growth is rapid in the western, southern and some parts of the eastern states, there are very few studies undertaken in the north, barring Delhi.