Law on early childhood education demanded

BHUBANESWAR: Civil society organisations have demanded a law on early childhood education recognising rights of the young children to have universal access to quality early childhood education. The demand wakes up in the context of the move of the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development to frame a draft policy concerning Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE).

The demand for law on early childhood education moots up in a two-day long advocacy workshop of civil society organisations working on young children in Odisha organised by National Campaign for ECCE Right (NCER) led by Committee for Legal Aid to Poor (CLAP) here.

Speaking on the occasion the Chairperson of State Commission for Protection of Child Right Saraswati Hembram emphasised on importance of mother tongue based education for tribal children at the stage of pre-primary education, which is already instructed under the Right to Education Act.

India representative of Netherland based Bernard van Leer Foundation Dharitri Pattanayak also emphasised on mother tongue based education as the State has a huge tribal population and their children remain far away from education because of non-availability of mother tongue based education which they use in their day to day life.

Attending the workshop, State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities Kasturi Mohapatra observed that children with disability receive very little policy attention in the proposed draft policy on ECCE. Unless children are provided with facilities and an inclusive provision is made the rights of physically challenged would be overlooked.

Referring to the draft policy on ECCE, the Executive Director of CLAP Pramoda Acharya stated that there is a need for the Government to immediately contemplate a national plan of action on ECCE so that the policy can really be implemented.

NCER convener of Dr Bikash Das presided over the workshop. Among others, women activist Namrata Chadha, Prof UN Dash, human right activist Baghambar Pattanayak, professor of Education at SCERT Prof BN Panda and former member of National Commission for Women Sukeshi Oram were present.