Pre-school education sans formal teaching

Updated on: Monday, August 22, 2011

Education without textbooks. This is what the government is contemplating for pre-school children.

“We would like to move forward, hopefully, in the next few years to bring pre-school education on the formal education agenda without formally teaching children between four and six years,'' HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Replying to a question on the steps taken to extend the purview of the Right to Education to children in the age group 0-6, he said: “No, I hope that we don't extend the RTE to age zero. But, certainly, the government is thinking about pre-school education at this point in time [to children] between ages 4 and 6.”

The government was looking at putting the onus of imparting pre-school education on anganwadis in the initial stage.

The RTE Act, 2009 obligates the government and the local authority to provide free and compulsory education to all children and ensure that every child in the age group 6-14 attends school during prescribed hours.

The Minister also said the government was considering universalising secondary education which could come through during the Five-Year Plan period beginning 2012. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his Independence Day speech, mentioned universalisation of secondary education.

Mr. Sibal said an inter-ministerial group was thinking of putting a blanket ban on all forms of child labour. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, prohibits engaging children below 14 in all occupations barring agriculture. Even in that sector, they could work only where tractors and threshing and harvesting machines are used. They cannot cut chaff or handle pesticides and insecticides.

Pre-school education sans formal teaching

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