The aim of Early Childhood Care and Education policy is to achieve holistic development and active learning capacity of all children below 6 years of age by promoting free, universal, inclusive, equitable, joyful and contextualised opportunities for laying foundation and attaining full potential. A total of 3.4 Crores children of 3-6 year age group are availing benefits of Pre-School education including 1.7 Crore boys and 1.7 Crore girls. A total amount of Rs. 503.28 Crores has been spent during the year 2013-14 to year 2015-16.

 

Year wise details of amount spent under Early Childhood Care and Education Policy:

 

Year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Amount (Rs. In Crores)	145.32	231.95	126.01

 

            The key areas of the Policy are as below:

 

                 i.Access with equity and inclusion in programmes and interventions across service providers;

               ii.Improving quality, Strengthening Capacity, Monitoring and Supervision

             iii.Research and Documentation

             iv.Advocacy and awareness generation

               v.Convergence and Coordination among policies and programmes

             vi.Institutional and Implementation Arrangements

           vii.Partnerships, Periodic Review and Increased investment towards ECCE

 

         Under the National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Policy the States/UTs are required to introduce Annual Contextualized Curriculum along with Pre-School Education (PSE) kit by aligning to the curriculum, activity books and celebrate ECCE day on monthly basis.

 

 

              This information was given by Minister of State for Women & Child Development, Smt Krishna Raj in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

 

 

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NB/UD

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